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BY 

ARTHUR    G.   BENSON 

FELLOW   OF  MAGDALKNE  COLLEGE 
CAMBRIDGE 


THE  UPTON    LETTERS 

FROM   A  COLLEGE 
WINDOW 

BESIDE  STILL  WATERS 

THE  ALTAR   FIRE 


THE  ALTAR  FIRE 


BY 

ARTHUR    CHRISTOPHER    BENSON 

FELLOW    OF   MAGDALENE    COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE 
AUTHOR   OF  "  THB    UPTON   LETTERS,"  ETC. 


Cecidit  auiem  ignis  Domini^  et  voravit  holocaustum 


G.   P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW   YORK  AND  LONDON 

^be  fcnicfterbocfier  predd 
1907 


1% 


Copyright,  1907 

BY 

ARTHUR  CHRISTOPHER  BENSON 


Ube  Uniclierbocliet  ptMS,  l^cw  IfotH 


PREFACE 

It  will  perhaps  be  said,  and  truly  felt,  that  the 
following  is  a  morbid  book.  No  doubt  the  sub- 
ject is  a  morbid  one,  because  the  book  deliberately 
gives  a  picture  of  a  diseased  spirit.  But  a  patho- 
logical treatise,  dealing  with  cancer  or  paralysis,  is 
not  necessarily  morbid,  though  it  may  be  studied 
in  a  morbid  mood.  We  have  learnt  of  late  years, 
to  our  gain  and  profit,  to  think  and  speak  of 
bodily  ailments  as  natural  phenomena,  not  to  slur 
over  them  and  hide  them  away  in  attics  and  bed- 
rooms. We  no  longer  think  of  insanity  as  de-:^ 
moniacal  possession,  and  we  no  longer  lock  up 
people  with  diseased  brains  in  the  secluded  apart- 
ments of  lonely  houses.  But  we  still  tend  to  think 
of  the  sufierings  of  the  heart  and  soul  as  if  they 
were  unreal,  imaginary,  hypochondriacal  things, 
which  could  be  cured  by  a  little  resolution  and 
by  intercourse  with  cheerful  society  ;  and  by  this 


162280 


iv  Preface 

foolish  and  secretive  reticence  we  lose  both  sym- 
pathy and  help.  I  once  heard  old  Mrs.  Procter, 
the  friend  of  Carlyle  and  lyamb,  a  brilliant  and 
somewhat  stoical  lady,  say  to  a  youthful  relative 
of  a  sickly  habit,  with  stern  emphasis,  ''Never  tell 
people  how  you  are !  They  don't  want  to  know." 
Up  to  a  certain  point  this  is  shrewd  and  whole- 
some advice.  One  does  undoubtedly  keep  some 
kinds  of  suffering  in  check  by  resolutely  minimis- 
ing them.  But  there  is  a  significance  in  suffering 
too.  It  is  not  all  a  clumsy  error,  a  well-meaning 
blunder.  It  is  a  deliberate  part  of  the  constitution 
of  the  world. 

Why  should  we  wish  to  conceal  the  fact  that 
we  have  suffered,  that  we  suffer,  that  we  are  likely 
to  suffer  to  the  end?  There  are  multitudes  of 
people  in  like  case  ;  the  very  confession  of  the 
fact  may  help  others  to  endure,  because  one  of 
the  darkest  miseries  of  suffering  is  the  horrible 
sense  of  isolation  that  it  brings.  And  if  this  book 
casts  the  least  ray  upon  the  sad  problem — a  ray  of 
the  light  that  I  have  learned  to  recognise  is  truly 
there — I  shall  be  more  than  content.  There  is  no 
morbidity  in  suffering,  or  in  confessing  that  one 
suffers.  Morbidity  only  begins  when  one  ac- 
quiesces   in    suffering    as  being   incurable   and 


Preface  v 

inevitable;  and  the  motive  of  this  book  is  to 
show  that  it  is  at  once  curative  and  curable,  a 
very  tender  part  of  a  wholly  loving  and  Fatherly 
design. 

A.  C.  B. 

Magdai^ene  Coi,i,ege,  Cambridge, 
July  14,  1907. 


INTRODUCTION 

I  HAD  intended  to  allow  the  records  that  follow 
— the  records  of  a  pilgrimage  sorely  beset  and 
hampered  by  sorrow  and  distress — to  speak  for 
themselves.  I^t  me  only  say  that  one  who 
makes  public  a  record  so  intimate  and  outspoken 
incurs,  as  a  rule,  a  certain  responsibility.  He  has 
to  consider  in  the  first  place,  or  at  least  he  cannot 
help  instinctively  considering,  what  the  wishes  of 
the  writer  would  have  been  on  the  subject.  I  do 
not  mean  that  one  who  has  to  decide  such  a  point 
is  bound  to  be  entirely  guided  by  that.  He  must 
weigh  the  possible  value  of  the  record  to  other 
spirits  against  what  he  thinks  that  the  writer 
himself  would  have  personally  desired.  A  far 
more  important  consideration  is  what  living 
people  who  play  a  part  in  such  records  feel  about 
their  publication.  But  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  our  whole  standard  in  such  matters  is  a  very 
false  and  conventional  one.  Supposing,  for  in- 
stance, that  a  very  sacred  and  intimate  record, 


viii  Introduction 

say,  two  hundred  years  old,  were  to  be  found 
among  some  family  papers,  it  is  inconceivable 
that  any  one  would  object  to  its  publication  on 
the  ground  that  the  writer  of  it,  or  the  people 
mentioned  in  it,  would  not  have  wished  it  to  see 
the  light.  We  show  how  weak  our  faith  really 
is  in  the  continuance  of  personal  identity  after 
death,  by  allowing  the  lapse  of  time  to  affect 
the  question  at  all ;  we  should  consider  it  a 
horrible  profanation  to  exhume  and  exhibit  the 
body  of  a  man  who  had  been  buried  a  few  years 
ago,  while  we  approve  of  the  action  of  archaeolo- 
gists who  explore  Egyptian  sepulchres,  we  sub- 
scribe to  their  operations,  and  should  consider  a 
man  a  mere  sentimentalist  who  suggested  that 
the  mummies  exhibited  in  museums  ought  to  be 
sent  back  for  interment  in  their  original  tombs. 
We  think  vaguely  that  a  man  who  died  a  few 
years  ago  would  in  some  way  be  outraged  if  his 
body  were  to  be  publicly  displayed,  while  we  do 
not  for  an  instant  regard  the  possible  feelings  of 
delicate  and  highly-born  Egyptian  ladies,  on 
whose  seemly  sepulture  such  anxious  and  tender 
care  was  expended  so  many  centuries  ago. 

But  in  this  case  there  is  no  such  responsibility. 
None  of  the  persons  concerned  have  any  objection 


Introduction  ix 

to  the  publication  of  these  records,  and  as  for  the 
writer  himself  he  was  entirely  free  from  any 
desire  for  a  fastidious  seclusion.  His  life  was  a 
secluded  one  enough,  and  he  felt  strongly  that  a 
man  has  a  right  to  his  own  personal  privacy. 
But  his  own  words  sufl&ciently  prove,  if  proof 
were  needed,  that  he  felt  that  to  deny  the  right 
of  others  to  participate  in  thoughts  and  experi- 
ences, which  might  uplift  or  help  a  mourner  or  a 
sufferer,  was  a  selfish  form  of  individualism  with 
which  he  had  no  sympathy  whatever.  He  felt, 
and  I  have  heard  him  say,  that  one  has  no  right 
to  withhold  from  others  any  reflections  which  can 
console  and  sustain,  and  he  held  it  to  be  the 
supreme  duty  of  a  man  to  ease,  if  he  could,  the 
burden  of  another.  He  knew  that  there  is  no 
sympathy  in  the  world  so  effective  as  the  sharing 
of  similar  experiences,  as  the  power  of  assuring  a 
sufferer  that  another  has  indeed  trodden  the  same 
dark  path  and  emerged  into  the  light  of  Heaven. 
I  will  even  venture  to  say  that  he  deliberately 
intended  that  his  record  should  be  so  used,  for 
purposes  of  alleviation  and  consolation,  and  the 
bequest  that  he  made  of  his  papers  to  myself, 
entrusting  them  to  my  absolute  discretion,  makes 
it  clear  to  me  that  I  have  divined  his  wishes  in 


xii  Introduction 

company,  but  he  was  always  ready  to  be  alone. 
He  very  seldom  went  to  the  rooms  of  other  men, 
except  in  response  to  definite  invitations  ;  but  he 
was  always  disposed  to  welcome  any  one  who 
came  spontaneously  to  see  him.  He  was  a  really 
diffident  and  modest  fellow,  and  I  do  not  think  it 
even  entered  into  his  head  to  imagine  that  he 
had  any  social  gifts  or  personal  charm.  But  I 
gradually  came  to  perceive  that  his  mind  was  of 
a  very  fine  quality.  He  had  a  mature  critical 
judgment,  and,  though  I  used  to  think  that  his 
tastes  were  somewhat  austere,  I  now  see  that  he 
had  a  very  sure  instinct  for  alighting  upon  what 
was  best  and  finest  in  books  and  art  alike.  He  used 
to  write  poetry  in  those  days,  but  he  was  shy  of 
confessing  it,  and  very  concious  of  the  demerits 
of  what  he  wrote.  I  have  some  of  his  youthful 
verses  by  me,  and  though  they  are  very  unequal 
and  full  of  lapses,  yet  he  often  strikes  a  firm  note 
and  displays  a  subtle  insight.  I  think  that  he 
was  more  ambitious  than  I  perhaps  knew,  and 
had  that  vague  belief  in  his  own  powers  which  is 
characteristic  of  able  and  unambitious  men.  His 
was  certainly,  on  the  whole,  a  cold  nature  in 
those  days.  He  could  take  up  a  friendship  where 
he  laid  it  down,  by  virtue  of  an  easy  frankness 


Introduction  xiii 

and  a  sympathy  that  was  intellectual  rather  than 
emotional.  But  the  suspension  of  intercourse 
with  a  friend  never  troubled  him. 

I  became  aware,  in  the  course  of  a  walking  tour 
that  I  took  with  him  in  those  days,  that  he  had  a 
deep  perception  of  the  beauties  of  nature  ;  it  was 
not  a  vague  accessibility  to  picturesque  impres- 
sions, but  a  critical  discernment  of  quality.  He 
always  said  that  he  cared  more  for  little  vignettes, 
which  he  could  grasp  entire,  than  for  wide  and 
majestic  prospects ;  and  this  was  true  of  his 
whole  mind. 

I  suppose  that  I  tended  to  idealise  him  ;  but  he 
certainly  seems  to  me,  in  retrospect,  to  have  then 
been  invested  with  a  singular  charm.  He  was 
pure-minded  and  fastidious  to  a  fault.  He  had 
considerable  personal  beauty,  rather  perhaps  of 
expression  than  of  feature.  He  was  one  of  those 
people  with  a  natural  grace  of  movement,  gesture, 
and  speech.  He  was  wholly  unembarrassed  in 
manner,  but  he  talked  little  in  a  mixed  company. 
No  one  had  fewer  enemies  or  fewer  intimate 
friends.  The  delightful  years  soon  came  to  an 
end,  and  one  of  the  few  times  I  ever  saw  him 
exhibit  strong  emotion  was  on  the  evening  before 
he  left  Cambridge,   when  he  altogether  broke 


xiv  Introduction 

down.     I  remember  his  quoting  a  verse  from 
Omar  Khayyam  : — 

"Yet  ah !  that  spring  should  vanish  with  the  rose, 
That  Youth's  sweet-scented  manuscript  should  dose," 

and  breaking  off  in  the  middle  with  sudden  tears. 
It  was  necessary  for  me  to  adopt  a  profession, 
and  I  remember  envying  him  greatly  when  he 
told  me  that  his  father,  who,  I  gathered,  rather 
idolised  him,  was  quite  content  that  he  should 
choose  for  himself  at  his  leisure.  He  went  abroad 
for  a  time ;  and  I  met  him  next  in  I^ondon,  where 
he  was  proposing  to  read  for  the  bar  ;  but  I  dis- 
covered that  he  had  really  found  his  mitier.  He 
had  written  a  novel,  which  he  showed  me,  and 
though  it  was  in  some  ways  an  immature  per- 
formance, it  had,  I  felt,  high  and  unmistakable 
literary  qualities.  It  was  published  soon  after- 
wards and  met  with  some  success.  He  thereupon 
devoted  himself  to  writing,  and  I  was  astonished 
at  his  industry  and  eagerness.  He  had  for  the 
first  time  found  a  congenial  occupation.  He 
lived  mostly  at  home  in  those  days,  but  he  was 
often  in  London,  where  he  went  a  good  deal  into 
society.  I  do  not  know  very  much  about  him  at 
this  time,  but  I  gather  that  he  achieved  some- 
thing of  a  social  reputation.      He  was  never  a 


Introduction  xv 

voluble  talker  ;  I  do  not  suppose  he  ever  set  the 
table  in  a  roar,  but  he  had  a  quiet,  humorous, 
and  sympathetic  manner.  His  physical  health 
was  then,  as  always,  perfect.  He  was  never  tired 
or  peevish  ;  he  was  frank,  kindly,  and  companion- 
able ;  he  talked  little  about  himself,  and  had  a 
genuine  interest  in  the  study  of  personality,  so 
that  people  were  apt  to  feel  at  their  best  in  his 
society.  Meanwhile  his  books  came  out  one  after 
another — not  great  books  exactly,  but  full  of 
humour  and  perception,  each  an  advance  on  the 
last.  By  the  age  of  thirty  he  was  accepted  as  one 
of  the  most  promising  novelists  of  the  day. 

Then  he  did  what  I  never  expected  he  would 
do  ;  he  fell  wildly  and  enthusiastically  in  love 
with  the  only  daughter  of  a  Gloucestershire 
clergyman,  a  man  of  good  family  and  position. 
She  was  the  only  child;  her  mother  had  died 
some  years  before,  and  her  father  died  shortly 
after  the  marriage.  She  was  a  beautiful,  vigorous 
girl,  extraordinarily  ingenuous,  simple-minded, 
and  candid.  She  was  not  clever  in  the  common 
acceptance  of  the  term,  and  was  not  the  sort  of 
person  by  whom  I  should  have  imagined  that  my 
friend  would  have  been  attracted.  They  settled 
in  a  pleasant  house,  which  they  built  in  Surrey, 


xvi  Introduction 

on  the  outskirts  of  a  village.  Three  children 
were  bom  to  them — a  boy  and  a  girl,  and  another 
boy,  who  survived  his  birth  only  a  few  hours. 
From  this  time  he  almost  entirely  deserted 
I/ondon,  and  became,  I  thought,  almost  strangely 
content  with  a  quiet  domestic  life.  I  was  often 
with  them  in  those  early  days,  and  I  do  not  think 
I  ever  saw  a  happier  circle.  It  was  a  large  and 
comfortable  house,  very  pleasantly  furnished,  with 
a  big  garden.  His  father  died  in  the  early  years 
of  the  marriage,  and  left  him  a  good  income ; 
with  the  proceeds  of  his  books  he  was  a  compar- 
atively wealthy  man.  His  wife  was  one  of  those 
people  who  have  a  serene  and  unaffected  interest 
in  human  beings.  She  was  a  religious  woman, 
but  her  relations  with  others  were  rather  based 
on  the  purest  kindliness  and  sympathy.  She 
knew  every  one  in  the  place,  and,  having  no 
touch  of  shyness,  she  went  in  and  out  among 
their  poorer  neighbours,  the  trusted  friend  and 
providence  of  numerous  families ;  but  she  had 
not  in  the  least  what  is  called  a  parochial  mind. 
She  had  no  touch  of  the  bustling  and  efficient 
lyady  Bountiful.  The  simple  people  she  visited 
were  her  friends  and  neighbours,  not  her  patients 
and  dependents.     She  was  simply  an  overflowing 


Introduction  xvii 

fountain  of  goodness,  and  it  was  as  natural  to  her 
to  hurry  to  a  scene  of  sorrow  and  suffering  as  it  is 
for  most  people  to  desire  to  stay  away.  My  friend 
himself  had  not  the  same  taste ;  it  was  always 
rather  an  effort  to  him  to  accommodate  himself 
to  people  in  a  different  way  of  life  ;  but  it  ought 
to  be  said  that  he  was  universally  liked  and  re- 
spected for  his  quiet  courtesy  and  simplicity,  and 
fully  as  much  for  his  own  sake  as  for  that  of  his 
wife.  This  fact  could  hardly  be  inferred  from 
his  Diary,  and  indeed  he  was  wholly  unconscious 
of  it  himself,  because  he  never  realised  his  natural 
charm,  and  indeed  was  unduly  afraid  of  boring 
people  by  his  presence. 

He  was  not  exactly  a  hard  worker,  but  he  was 
singularly  regular ;  indeed,  though  he  sometimes 
took  a  brief  holiday  after  writing  a  book,  he  seldom 
missed  a  day  without  writing  some  few  pages. 
One  of  the  reasons  why  they  paid  so  few  visits 
was  that  he  tended,  as  he  told  me,  to  feel  so  much 
bored  away  from  his  work.  It  was  at  once  his 
occupation  and  his  recreation.  He  was  not  one 
of  those  who  write  fiercely  and  feverishly,  and 
then  fall  into  exhaustion  ;  he  wrote  cheerfully 
and  temperately,  and  never  appeared  to  feel  the 
strain.      They  lived  quietly,  but  a  good  many 


xviii  Introduction 

friends  came  and  went.  He  mucli  preferred  to 
have  a  single  guest,  or  a  husband  and  wife,  at  a 
time,  and  pursued  his  work  quietly  all  through. 
He  used  to  see  that  one  had  all  one  could  need, 
and  then  withdrew  after  tea-time,  not  reappear- 
ing until  dinner.  His  wife,  it  was  evident,  was 
devoted  to  him  with  an  almost  passionate  adora- 
tion. The  reason  why  life  went  so  easily  there 
was  that  she  studied  unobtrusively  his  smallest 
desires  and  preferences ;  and  thus  there  was 
never  any  sense  of  special  contrivance  or  con- 
sideration for  his  wishes  ;  the  day  was  arranged 
exactly  as  he  liked,  without  his  ever  having  to 
insist  upon  details.  He  probably  did  not  realise 
this,  for  though  he  liked  settled  ways,  he  was 
sensitively  averse  to  feeling  that  his  own  con- 
venience was  in  any  way  superseding  or  over- 
riding the  convenience  of  others.  It  used  to  be  a 
great  delight  and  refreshment  to  stay  there.  He 
was  fond  of  rambling  about  the  country,  and  was 
an  enchanting  companion  in  a  tHe-h-tHe,  In  the 
evening  he  UvSed  to  expand  very  much  into  a 
genial  humour  which  was  very  attractive ;  he 
had,  too,  the  art  of  making  swift  and  subtle  tran- 
sitions into  an  emotional  mood  ;  and  here  his 
poetical  gift  of  seeing  unexpected  analogies  and 


Introduction  xix 

delicate  characteristics  gave  his  talk  a  fragrant 
charm  which  I  have  seldom  heard  equalled. 

It  was  indeed  a  picture  of  wonderful  prosperity, 
happiness,  and  delight.  The  children  were  en- 
gaging, clever,  and  devotedly  affectionate,  and 
indeed  the  atmosphere  of  mutual  affection  seemed 
to  float  over  the  circle  like  a  fresh  and  scented 
summer  air.  One  used  to  feel,  as  one  drove 
away,  that  though  one's  visit  had  been  a  pleas- 
ure, there  would  be  none  of  the  flatness  which 
sometimes  follows  the  departure  of  a  guest,  but 
that  one  was  leaving  them  to  a  home  life  that 
was  better  than  sociability,  a  life  that  was  both 
sacred  and  beautiful,  full  to  the  brim  of  affection, 
yet  without  any  softness  or  sentimentality. 

Then  came  my  friend's  great  success.  He  had 
written  less  since  his  marriage,  and  his  books,  I 
thought,  were  beginning  to  flag  a  little.  There 
was  a  want  of  freshness  about  them ;  he  tended 
to  use  the  same  characters  and  similar  situations  ; 
both  thought  and  phraseology  became  somewhat 
mannerised,  I  put  this  down  myself  to  the  belief 
that  life  was  beginning  to  be  more  interesting  to 
him  than  art.  But  there  suddenly  appeared  the 
book  which  made  him  famous,  a  book  both 
masterly  and  delicate,  full  of  subtle  analysis  and 


XX  Introduction 

perception,  and  with  that  indescribable  sense  of 
actuality  which  is  the  best  test  of  art.  The  style 
at  the  same  time  seemed  to  have  run  clear ;  he 
had  gained  a  perfect  command  of  his  instrument, 
and  I  had  about  this  book,  what  I  had  never  had 
about  any  other  book  of  his,  the  sense  that  he 
was  producing  exactly  the  effects  he  meant  to 
produce.  The  extraordinary  merit  of  the  book 
was  instantly  recognised  by  all,  I  think,  but  the 
author.  He  went  abroad  for  a  time  after  the 
book  was  published,  and  eventually  returned ; 
it  was  at  that  point  of  his  life  that  the  Diary 
began. 

I  went  to  see  him  not  long  after,  and  it  became 
rapidly  clear  to  me  that  something  had  happened 
to  him.  Instead  of  being  radiant  with  success, 
eager  and  contented,  I  found  him  depressed,  anx- 
ious, haggard.  He  told  me  that  he  felt  unstrung 
and  exhausted,  and  that  his  power  of  writing  had 
deserted  him.  But  I  must  bear  testimony  at  the 
same  time  to  the  fact  which  does  not  emerge  in 
the  Diary,  namely,  the  extraordinary  gallantry 
and  patience  of  his  conduct  and  demeanour.  He 
struggled  visibly  and  pathetically,  from  hour  to 
hour,  against  his  depression.  He  never  com- 
plained ;  he  never  showed,  at  least  in  my  pres- 


Introduction  xxi 

ence,  the  smallest  touch  of  irritability.  Indeed 
to  myself,  who  had  known  him  as  the  most 
equable  and  good-humoured  of  men,  he  seemed 
to  support  the  trial  with  a  courage  little  short  of 
heroism.  The  trial  was  a  sore  one,  because  it  de- 
prived him  both  of  motive  and  occupation.  But 
he  made  the  best  of  it ;  he  read,  he  took  long 
walks,  and  he  threw  himself  with  great  eagerness 
into  the  education  of  his  children — a  task  for 
which  he  was  peculiarly  qualified.  Then  a  series 
of  calamities  fell  upon  him  :  he  lost  his  boy,  a 
child  of  wonderful  ability  and  sweetness  ;  he  lost 
his  fortune,  or  the  greater  part  of  it.  The  latter 
calamity  he  bore  with  perfect  imperturbabiHty — 
they  let  their  house  and  moved  into  Gloucester- 
shire. Here  a  certain  measure  of  happiness 
seemed  to  return  to  him.  He  made  a  new  fi-iend, 
as  the  Diary  relates,  in  the  person  of  the  Squire  of 
the  village,  a  man  who,  though  an  invalid,  had  a 
strong  and  almost  mystical  hold  upon  life.  Here 
he  began  to  interest  himself  in  the  people  of  the 
place,  and  tried  all  sorts  of  educational  and  social 
experiments.  But  his  wife  fell  ill,  and  died  very 
suddenly  ;  and,  not  long  after,  his  daughter  died 
too.  He  was  for  a  time  almost  wholly  broken 
down.     I  went  abroad  with  him  at  his  request 


xxii  Introduction 

for  a  few  weeks,  but  I  was  myself  obliged  to  re- 
turn to  England  to  my  professional  duties.  I  can 
only  say  that  I  did  not  expect  ever  to  see  him 
again.  He  was  like  a  man,  the  spring  of  whose 
life  was  broken ;  but  at  the  same  time  he  bore 
himself  with  a  patience  and  a  gentleness  that 
fairly  astonished  me.  We  were  together  day  by 
day  and  hour  by  hour.  He  made  no  complaint, 
and  he  used  to  force  himself,  with  what  sad  effort 
was  only  too  plain,  to  converse  on  all  sorts  of 
topics.  Some  time  after  he  drifted  back  to  Eng- 
land ;  but  at  first  he  appeared  to  be  in  a  very 
listless  and  dejected  state.  Then  there  came, 
almost  suddenly,  it  seemed  to  me,  a  change.  He 
had  made  the  sacrifice  ;  he  had  accepted  the  situa- 
tion. There  came  to  him  a  serenity  which  was 
only  like  his  old  serenity  from  the  fact  that  it 
seemed  entirely  unaffected ;  but  it  was  based,  I 
felt,  on  a  very  different  view  of  life.  He  was  now 
content  to  wait  and  to  believe.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  the  Squire  died ;  and  not  long  after- 
wards, the  Squire's  niece,  a  woman  of  great 
strength  and  simplicity  of  character,  married  a 
clergyman,  to  whom  she  had  been  long  attached, 
both  being  middle-aged  people;  and  the  living 
soon  afterwards  falling  vacant,  her  husband  ac- 


Introduction  xxiii 

cepted  it,  and  the  newly-married  pair  moved  into 
the  Rectory  ;  while  my  friend,  who  had  been 
named  as  the  Squire's  ultimate  heir,  a  life-interest 
in  the  property  being  secured  to  the  niece,  went 
into  the  Hall.  Shortly  afterwards  he  adopted  a 
nephew — his  sister's  son — who,  with  the  consent 
of  all  concerned,  was  brought  up  as  the  heir  to 
the  estate,  and  is  its  present  proprietor. 

My  friend  lived  some  fifteen  years  after  that,  a 
quiet,  active,  and  obviously  contented  life.  I  was 
a  frequent  guest  at  the  Hall,  and  I  am  sure  that  I 
never  saw  a  more  attached  circle.  My  friend  led 
an  active  life.  He  became  a  magistrate,  and  he 
did  a  good  deal  of  county  business  ;  but  his  main 
interest  was  in  the  place,  where  he  was  the  trusted 
friend  and  counsellor  of  every  household  in  the 
parish.  He  took  a  great  deal  of  active  exercise 
in  the  open  air  ;  he  read  much.  He  taught  his 
nephew  whom  he  did  not  send  to  school.  He 
regained,  in  fuller  measure  than  ever,  his  old  de- 
lightful charm  of  conversation,  and  his  humour, 
which  had  always  been  predominant  in  him,  took 
on  a  deeper  and  richer  tinge  ;  but  whereas  in  old 
days  he  had  been  brilliant  and  epigrammatic,  he 
was  now  rather  poetical  and  suggestive ;  and 
whereas  he  had  formerly  been  reticent  about  his 


xxiv  Introduction 

emotions  and  his  religion  he  now  acquired  what 
is  to  my  mind  the  profoundest  conversational 
charm — the  power  of  making  swift  and  natural 
transitions  into  matters  of  what,  for  want  of  a 
better  word,  I  will  call  spiritual  experience.  I 
remember  his  once  saying  to  me  that  he  had 
learnt,  from  his  intercourse  with  his  village  neigh- 
bours, that  the  one  thing  in  the  world  in  which 
every  one  was  interested  was  religion  ;  * '  even 
more,"  he  added,  with  a  smile,  **  than  in  the  one 
subject  in  which  Sir  Robert  Walpole  said  that 
every  one  could  join." 

I  do  not  suppose  that  his  religion  was  of  a 
particularly  orthodox  kind ;  he  was  impatient 
of  dogmatic  definition  and  of  ecclesiastical  ten- 
dencies ;  but  he  cared  with  all  his  heart  for  the 
vital  principles  of  religion,  the  love  of  God  and 
the  love  of  one's  neighbour. 

He  lived  to  see  his  adopted  son  grow  up  to 
maturity  ;  and  I  do  not  think  I  ever  saw  anything 
so  beautiful  as  the  confidence  and  affection  that 
existed  between  them ;  and  then  he  died  one 
day,  as  he  had  often  told  me  he  desired  to  die. 
He  had  been  ailing  for  a  week,  and  on  rising 
from  his  chair  in  the  morning  he  was  seized  by 
a  sudden  faintness  and  died  within  half-an-hour, 


Introduction  xxv 

hardly  knowing,  I  imagine,  that  he  was  in  any 
danger. 

It  fell  to  me  to  deal  with  his  papers.  There 
was  a  certain  amount  of  scattered  writing,  but  no 
completed  work  ;  it  all  dated  from  before  the  pub- 
lication of  his  great  book.  It  was  determined 
that  this  Diary  should  eventually  see  the  light, 
and  circumstances  into  which  I  need  not  now 
enter  have  rendered  its  appearance  advisable  at 
the  present  date. 

The  interest  of  the  document  is  its  candour  and 
outspokenness.  If  the  tone  of  the  record,  until 
near  the  end,  is  one  of  unrelieved  sadness,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  all  the  time  he  bore  himself 
in  the  presence  of  others  with  a  singular  courage 
and  simplicity.  He  said  to  me  once,  in  an  hour 
of  dark  despair,  that  he  had  drunk  the  dregs  of 
self-abasement.  That  he  believed  that  he  had 
no  sense  of  morality,  no  loyal  affection,  no  love 
of  virtue,  no  patience  or  courage.  That  his  only 
motives  had  been  timidity,  personal  ambition, 
love  of  respectability,  love  of  ease.  He  added 
that  this  had  been  slowly  revealed  to  him,  and 
that  the  only  way  out  was  a  way  that  he  had  not 
as  yet  strength  to  tread  ;  the  way  of  utter  sub- 
mission, absolute  confidence,  entire  resignation. 


xxvi  Introduction 

He  said  that  there  was  one  comfort,  which 
was,  that  he  knew  the  worst  about  himself  that 
it  was  possible  to  know.  I  told  him  that  his 
view  of  his  character  was  unjust  and  exag- 
gerated, but  he  only  shook  his  head  with  a 
smile  that  went  to  my  heart.  It  was  on  that 
day,  I  think,  that  he  touched  the  lowest  depth  of 
all ;  and  after  that  he  found  the  way  out,  along 
the  path  that  he  had  indicated. 

This  is  no  place  for  eulogy  and  panegyric.  My 
task  has  been  just  to  trace  the  portrait  of  my 
friend  as  he  appeared  to  others ;  his  own  words 
shall  reveal  the  inner  spirit.  The  beauty  of  the 
life  to  me  was  that  he  attained,  unconsciously 
and  gradually,  to  the  very  virtues  which  he  most 
desired  and  in  which  he  felt  himself  to  be  most 
deficient.  He  had  to  bear  a  series  of  devastating 
calamities.  He  had  loved  the  warmth  and  near- 
ness of  his  home  circle  more  deeply  than  most 
men,  and  the  whole  of  it  was  swept  away  ;  he 
had  depended  for  stimulus  and  occupation  alike 
upon  his  artistic  work,  and  the  power  was  taken 
from  him  at  the  moment  of  his  highest  achieve- 
ment. His  loss  of  fortune  is  not  to  be  reckoned 
among  his  calamities,  because  it  was  no  calamity 
to  him.     He  ended  by  finding  a  richer  treasure 


Introduction  xxvii 

than  any  that  he  had  set  out  to  obtain  ;  and  I 
remember  that  he  said  to  me  once,  not  long  be- 
fore his  end,  that  whatever  others  might  feel 
about  their  own  lives,  he  could  not  for  a  moment 
doubt  that  his  own  had  been  an  education  of  a 
deliberate  and  loving  kind,  and  that  the  day 
when  he  realised  that,  when  he  saw  that  there 
was  not  a  single  incident  in  his  life  that  had  not 
a  deep  and  an  intentional  value  for  him,  was  one 
of  the  happiest  days  of  his  whole  existence.  I  do 
not  know  that  he  expected  anything  or  speculated 
on  what  might  await  him  hereafter ;  he  put  his 
future,  just  as  he  put  his  past  and  his  present, 
in  the  hands  of  God,  to  whom  he  committed 
himself  "as  unto  a  faithful  Creator." 


THE    ALTAR    FIRE 


The  Altar  Fire 


September  8,  1888. 

WK  came  back  yesterday,  after  a  very  pro- 
sperous time  at  Zermatt ;  we  have  been 
there  two  entire  months.  Yes,  it  was  certainly 
prosperous!  We  had  delicious  weather,  and  I 
have  seen  a  number  of  pleasant  people.  I  have 
done  a  great  deal  of  walking,  I  have  read  a  lot  of 
novels  and  old  poetry,  I  have  sate  about  a  good 
deal  in  the  open  air ;  but  I  do  not  really  like 
Switzerland ;  there  are  of  course  a  multitude  of 
noble  wide-hung  views,  but  there  are  few  vign- 
ettes, little  on  which  the  mind  and  heart  dwell 
with  an  intimate  and  familiar  satisfaction.  Those 
airy  pinnacles  of  toppling  rocks,  those  sheets  of 
slanted  snow,  those  ice-bound  crags — there  is  a 
sense  of  fear  and  mystery  about  them !  One  does 
not  know  what  is  going  on  there,  what  they  are 
waiting  for;  they  have  no  human  meaning. 
They    do    not    seem    to    have    any   relation   to 


2  The  Altar  Fire 

humanity  at  all.  Sunday  after  Sunday  one  used 
to  have  sermons  in  that  hot,  trim  little  wooden 
church — some  from  quite  famous  preachers — 
about  the  need  of  rest,  the  advantage  of  letting 
the  mind  and  eye  dwell  in  awe  upon  the  wonder- 
ful works  of  God .  Of  course  the  mountains  are 
wonderful  enough;  but  they  make  me  feel  that 
humanity  plays  a  very  trifling  part  in  the  mind 
and  purpose  of  God.  I  do  not  think  that  if  I 
were  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel,  and  had  a  specu- 
lative turn,  I  should  care  to  take  a  holiday  among 
the  mountains.  I  should  be  beset  by  a  dreary 
wonder  whether  the  welfare  of  humanity  was  a 
thing  very  dear  to  God  at  all.  I  should  feel  very 
strongly  what  the  Psalmist  said,  "What  is  man 
that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?  "  It  would  take 
the  wind  out  of  my  sails,  when  I  came  to  preach 
about  Redemption,  because  I  should  be  tempted 
to  believe  that,  after  all,  human  beings  were  only 
in  the  world  on  sufferance,  and  that  the  aching, 
frozen,  barren  earth,  so  inimical  to  life,  was  in 
even  more  urgent  need  of  redemption.  Day  by 
day,  among  the  heights,  I  grew  to  feel  that  I 
wanted  some  explanation  of  why  the  strange 
panorama  of  splintered  crag  and  hanging  ice-fall 
was  there  at  all.     It  certainly  is  not  there  with 


Switzerland 


any  reference  to  man — at  least  it  is  hard  to  be- 
lieve that  it  is  all  there  that  human  beings  may 
take  a  refreshing  holiday  in  the  midst  of  it. 
When  one  penetrates  Switzerland  by  the  green 
pine-clad  valleys,  passing  through  and  beneath 
those  delicious  upland  villages,  each  clustering 
round  a  church  with  a  glittering  cupola,  the 
wooden  houses  w^th  their  brown  fronts,  their 
big  eaves,  perched  up  aloft  at  such  pleasant 
angles,  one  thinks  of  Switzerland  as  an  inhabited 
land  of  valleys,  with  screens  and  backgrounds  of 
peaks  and  snowfields;  but  when  one  goes  up 
higher  still,  and  gets  up  to  the  top  of  one  of  the 
peaks,  one  sees  that  Switzerland  is  really  a  region 
of  barren  ridges,  millions  of  acres  of  cold  stones 
and  ice,  with  a  few  little  green  cracks  among  the 
mountain  bases,  where  men  have  crept  to  live; 
and  that  man  is  only  tolerated  there. 

One  day  I  was  out  with  a  guide  on  a  peak  at 
sunrise.  Behind  the  bleak  and  shadowy  ridges 
there  stole  a  flush  of  awakening  dawn  ;  then  came 
a  line  of  the  purest  yellow  light,  touching  the 
crags  and  snowfields  with  sharp  blue  shadows ; 
the  lemon- coloured  radiance  passed  into  fiery 
gold,  the  gold  flushed  to  crimson,  and  then  the 
sun  leapt  into  sight,  and  shed  the  light  of  day 


4  The  Altar  Fire 

upon  the  troubled  sea  of  mountains.  It  was  more 
than  that — the  hills  made,  as  it  were,  the  rim  of 
a  great  cold  shadowy  goblet ;  and  the  light  was 
poured  into  it  from  the  uprushing  sun,  as  bubbling 
and  sparkling  wine  is  poured  into  a  beaker.  I 
found  myself  thrilled  from  head  to  foot  with  an 
intense  and  mysterious  rapture.  What  did  it  all 
mean,  this  awful  and  resplendent  solemnity,  full 
to  the  brim  of  a  solitary  and  unapproachable  holi- 
ness ?  What  was  the  secret  of  the  thing  ?  Per- 
haps every  one  of  those  stars  that  we  had  seen 
fade  out  of  the  night  was  ringed  round  by  planets 
such  as  ours,  peopled  by  forms  undreamed  of  ; 
doubtless  on  millions  of  globes,  the  daylight  of 
some  central  sun  was  coming  in  glory  over  the 
cold  ridges,  and  waking  into  life  sentient  beings, 
in  lands  outside  our  ken,  each  with  civilisations 
and  histories  and  hopes  and  fears  of  its  own. 
A  stupendous,  an  overwhelming  thought  !  And 
yet,  in  the  midst  of  it,  here  was  I  myself,  a  little 
consciousness  sharply  divided  from  it  all,  permit- 
ted to  be  a  spectator,  a  partaker  of  the  intolerable 
and  gigantic  mystery,  and  yet  so  strangely  made 
that  the  whole  of  that  vast  and  prodigious  com- 
plexity of  life  and  law  counted  for  less  to  me  than 
the  touch  of  weariness  that  hung,  after  my  long 


Strange  Moods  5 

vigil,  over  limbs  and  brain.  The  facult3%  the 
godlike  power  of  knowing  and  imagining,  all 
actually  less  to  me  than  my  own  tiny  and  fragile 
sensations.  Such  moods  as  these  are  strange 
things,  because  they  bring  with  them  so  intense 
a  desire  to  know,  to  perceive,  and  yet  paralyse 
one  with  the  horror  of  the  darkness  in  which  one 
moves.  One  cannot  conceive  why  it  is  that  one 
is  given  the  power  of  realising  the  multiplicity  of 
creation,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  left  so  wholly 
ignorant  of  its  significance.  One  longs  to  leap 
into  the  arms  of  God,  to  catch  some  whisper  of 
His  voice ;  and  at  the  same  time  there  falls  the 
shadow  of  the  prison-house  ;  one  is  driven  relent- 
lessly back  upon  the  old  limited  life,  the  duties, 
the  labours,  the  round  of  meals  and  sleep,  the 
tiny  relations  with  others  as  ignorant  as  ourselves, 
and,  still  worse,  with  the  petty  spirits  who  have 
a  complacent  explanation  of  it  all.  Even  over 
love  itself  the  shadow  falls.  I  am  as  near  to  my 
own  dear  and  true  Maud  as  it  is  possible  to  be ; 
but  I  can  tell  her  nothing  of  the  mystery,  and 
she  can  tell  me  nothing.  We  are  allowed  for  a 
time  to  draw  close  to  each  other,  to  whisper  to 
each  other  our  hopes  and  fears ;  but  at  any 
moment  we  can  be  separated.      The  children. 


6  The  Altar  Fire 

Alec  and  Maggie,  dearer  to  me — I  can  say  it  hon- 
estly— than  life  itself,  to  whom  we  have  given  be- 
ing, whose  voices  I  hear  as  I  write,  what  of 
them  ?  They  are  each  of  them  alone,  though 
they  hardly  know  it  yet.  The  little  unnamed 
son,  who  opened  his  eyes  upon  the  world  six 
years  ago,  to  close  them  in  a  few  hours,  where 
and  what  is  he  now  ?  Is  he  somewhere,  any- 
where ?  Does  he  know  of  the  joy  and  sorrow  he 
has  brought  into  our  lives  ?  I  would  fain  believe 
it  .  .  .  these  are  profitless  thoughts,  of  one 
staring  into  the  abyss.  Somehow  these  bright 
weeks  have  been  to  me  a  dreary  time.  I  am  well 
in  health  ;  nothing  ails  me.  It  is  six  months 
since  my  last  book  was  published,  and  I  have 
taken  a  deliberate  holiday  ;  but  always  before, 
my  mind,  the  strain  of  a  book  once  taken  ofi"  it, 
has  begun  to  sprout  and  burgeon  with  new  ideas 
and  schemes  :  but  now,  for  the  first  time  in  my 
life,  my  mind  and  heart  remain  bare  and  arid.  I 
seem  to  have  drifted  into  a  dreary  silence.  It  is 
not  that  things  have  been  less  beautiful,  but 
beauty  seems  to  have  had  no  message,  no  signifi- 
cance for  me.  The  people  that  I  have  seen  have 
come  and  gone  like  ghosts  and  puppets.  I  have 
had  no  curiosity  about  them,  their  occupations 


The  Empty  Soul 


and  thoughts,  their  hopes  and  loves ;  it  has  not 
seemed  worth  while  to  be  interested,  in  a  life 
which  appears  so  short,  and  which  leads  nowhere. 
It  seems  morbid  to  write  thus,  but  I  have  not 
been  either  morbid  or  depressed.  It  has  been  an 
easy  life,  the  life  of  the  last  few  months,  without 
effort  or  dissatisfaction,  but  without  zest.  It  is  a 
mental  tiredness,  I  suppose.  I  have  written  my- 
self out,  and  the  cistern  must  fill  again.  Yet  I 
have  had  no  feeling  of  fatigue.  It  would  have 
been  almost  better  to  have  had  something  to 
bear;  but  I  am  richer  than  I  need  be,  Maud  and 
the  children  have  been  in  perfect  health  and  hap- 
piness, I  have  been  well  and  strong.  I  shall  hope 
that  the  familiar  scene,  the  pleasant  activities  of 
home-life  will  bring  the  desire  back.  I  realise 
how  much  the  fabric  of"  my  life  is  built  upon  my 
writing,  and  write  I  must.  Well,  I  have  said 
enough  ;  the  pleasure  of  these  entries  is  that  one 
can  look  back  to  them,  and  see  the  movement  of 
the  current  of  life  in  a  bygone  day.  I  have  an 
immense  mass  of  arrears  to  make  up,  in  the  form 
of  letters  and  business,  but  I  want  to  survey  the 
ground  ;  and  the  survey  is  not  a  very  happy  one 
this  morning ;  though  if  I  made  a  list  of  my 
benefits  and  the  reverse,   like  Robinson  Crusoe, 


8  The  Altar  Fire 

the  credit  side  would  be  full  of  good  things,  and 
the  debit  side  nearly  empty. 

September  15,  1888. 
It  is  certainly  very  sweet  to  be  at  home  again  ; 
to  find  oneself  in  familiar  scenes,  with  all  the 
pretty  homely  comfortable  things  waiting  patient- 
ly for  us  to  return — pictures,  books,  rooms,  trees, 
kindly  people.  Wright,  my  excellent  gardener, 
with  whom  I  spent  an  hour  strolling  round  the 
garden  to-day,  touched  me  by  saying  that  he  was 
glad  to  see  me  back,  and  that  it  had  seemed  dull 
without  me  ;  he  had  done  fifty  little  simple  things 
in  our  absence,  in  his  tranquil  and  faithful  way, 
and  is  pleased  to  have  them  noticed.  Alec,  who 
was  with  me  to-day,  delighted  me  by  finding  his 
stolid  wooden  horse  in  the  summer-house,  rather 
damp  and  dishevelled,  and  almost  bursting  into 
tears  at  the  pathos  of  the  neglect.  ' '  Did  you 
think  we  had  forgotten  you  ? "  he  said  as  he 
hugged  it.  I  suggested  that  he  should  have  a 
good  meal.  "  I  don't  think  he  would  care  about 
grass ^ ' '  said  Alec  thoughtfully,  ' '  he  should  have 
some  leaves  and  berries  for  a  treat."  And  this 
was  tenderly  executed.  Maud  went  off  to  see 
some  of  her  old  pensioners,  and  came  back  glow- 
ing with  pleasure,  with  twenty  pleasant  stories  of 


Home  9 

welcome.  Two  or  three  people  came  in  to  see  me 
on  business,  and  I  was  glad  to  feel  I  was  of  use. 
In  the  afternoon  we  all  went  off  on  a  long  ramble 
together,  and  we  were  quite  surprised  to  see  that 
everything  seemed  to  be  in  its  place  as  usual. 
Summer  is  over,  the  fields  have  been  reaped  ; 
there  is  a  comfortable  row  of  stacks  in  the  rick- 
yard  ;  the  pleasant  humming  of  an  engine  came 
up  the  valley,  as  it  sang  its  homely  monotone, 
now  low,  now  loud.  After  tea — the  evenings 
have  begun  to  close  in — I  went  off  to  my  study, 
took  out  my  notebook  and  looked  over  my  sub- 
jects, but  I  could  make  nothing  of  any  of  them. 
I  could  see  that  there  were  some  good  ideas  among 
them  ;  but  none  of  them  took  shape.  Often  I 
have  found  that  to  glance  over  my  subjects  thus, 
after  a  holiday,  is  like  blowing  soap-bubbles. 
The  idea  comes  out  swelling  and  eddying  from 
the  bowl  ;  a  globe  swimming  with  lucent  hues, 
reflecting  dim  moving  shapes  of  rooms  and  fig- 
ures. Not  so  to-day.  My  mind  winked  and 
flapped  and  rustled  like  a  burnt-out  fire  ;  not  in  a 
depressed  or  melancholy  way,  but  phlegmatically 
and  dully.  Well,  the  spirit  bloweth  as  it  listeth; 
but  it  is  strange  to  find  my  mind  so  unresponsive, 
with  none  of  that  pleasant  stir,  that  excitement 


lo  The  Altar  Fire 

that  has  a  sort  of  fantastic  terror  about  it,  such  as 
happens  when  a  book  stretches  itself  dimly  and 
mysteriously  before  the  mind — when  one  has  a 
glimpse  of  a  quiet  room  with  people  talking,  a 
man  riding  fiercely  on  lonely  roads,  two  strolling 
together  in  a  moonlit  garden,  with  the  shadows 
of  the  cypresses  on  the  turf,  and  the  fragrance  of 
the  sleeping  flowers  blown  abroad.  They  stop  to 
listen  to  the  nightingale  in  the  bush — they  turn 
to  each  other — the  currents  of  life  are  inter- 
mingled at  the  meeting  of  the  lips,  the  warm 
shudder  at  the  touch  of  the  floating  tress  of  fra- 
grant hair.  To-day  nothing  comes  to  me  ;  I  throw 
it  all  aside  and  go  to  see  the  children,  am  greeted 
delightfully,  and  join  in  some  pretty  and  absurd 
game.  Then  dinner  comes  ;  and  I  sit  afterwards 
reading,  dropping  the  book  to  talk,  Maud  work- 
ing in  her  corner  by  the  fire — all  things  moving  so 
tranquilly  and  easily  in  this  pleasantly  ordered 
home-like  house  of  ours.  It  is  good  to  be  at 
home  ;  and  how  pitiful  to  be  hankering  thus  for 
something  else  to  fill  the  mind,  which  should 
obliterate  all  the  beloved  things  so  tenderly  pro- 
vided. Maud  asks  about  the  reception  of  the 
latest  book,  and  sparkles  with  pride  at  some  of 
the  things  I  tell  her.  She  sees  somehow — how  do 


Success  1 1 

women  divine  these  things  ? — that  there  is  a  little 
shadow  of  unrest  over  me,  and  she  tells  me  all  the 
comforting  things  that  I  dare  not  say  to  myself— 
that  it  is  only  that  the  book  took  more  out  of  me 
than  I  knew,  and  that  the  resting-time  is  not  over 
yet  ;  but  that  I  shall  soon  settle  down  again. 
Then  I  go  off  to  smoke  awhile  ;  and  then  the 
haunting  shadow  comes  back  for  a  little  ;  till  at 
last  I  go  softly  through  the  sleeping  house  ;  and 
presently  lie  listening  to  the  quiet  breathing  of 
my  wife  beside  me,  glad  to  be  at  home  again, 
until  the  thoughts  grow  blurred,  take  grot^g^^' 
shapes,  sinking  softly  into  repose. 

September  i8,  1888. 
I  have  spent  most  of  the  morning  in  clearing 
up  business,  and  dealing  with  papers  and  letters. 
Among  the  accumulations  was  a  big  bundle  of 
press-cuttings,  all  dealing  with  my  last  book.  It 
comes  home  to  me  that  the  book  has  been  a  suc- 
cess ;  it  began  by  slaying  its  thousands,  like 
Saul,  and  now  it  has  slain  its  tens  of  thousands. 
It  has  brought  me  hosts  of  letters,  from  all  sorts 
of  people,  some  of  them  very  delightful  and  en- 
couraging, many  vexy  pleasant— just  grateful  and 
simple  letters  of  thanks — some  vulgar  and  im- 
pertinent, some  strangely  intimate.     What  is  it. 


> 


12  The  Altar  Fire 

I  wonder,  that  makes  some  people  want  to  tell  a 
writer  whom  they  have  never  seen  all  about  them- 
selves, their  thoughts  and  histories  ?  In  some 
cases  it  is  an  unaifected  desire  for  sympathy  from 
a  person  whom  they  think  perceptive  and  sympa- 
thetic ;  in  some  cases  it  proceeds,  I  think,  from  a 
hysterical  desire  to  be  thought  interesting,  with 
a  faint  hope,  I  fear,  of  being  possibly  put  into  a 
book.  Some  of  the  letters  have  been  simply  un- 
intelligible and  inconceivable  on  any  hypothesis, 
except  for  the  human  instinct  to  confess,  to  bare 
theheart,  to  display  the  secret  sorrow.  Many 
of  these  letters  are  intensely  pathetic,  affecting, 
heart-rending  ;  an  invalid  lady  writes  to  say  that 
she  would  like  to  know  me,  and  will  I  come  to  the 
North  of  England  to  see  her  ?  A  man  writes  a 
pretentious  letter,  to  ask  me  to  go  and  stay  with 
him  for  a  week.  He  has  nothing  to  offer,  he  says, 
but  plain  fare  and  rather  cramped  quarters  ;  but 
he  has  thought  deeply,  he  adds,  on  many  of  the 
problems  on  which  I  touch,  and  thinks  that  he 
could  throw  light  upon  some  of  them.  Imagine 
what  reserves  of  interest  and  wisdom  he  must 
consider  that  he  possesses !  Then  there  are 
patronising  letters  from  people  who  say  that  I 
have  put  into  words  thoughts  which  they  have 


/^sJ^ 


A  Painful  Letter  13 


always  had,  and  which  they  never  took  the 
trouble  to  write  down  ;  then  there  are  requests 
for  autographs,  and  "sentiments,"  and  sugges- 
tions for  new  books.  '^K  man  writes  to  say  that 
I  could  do  untold  good  if  I  would  write  a  book 
with  a  purpose,  and  ventures  to  propose  that  I 
should  take  up  anti-vivisection.  There  are  a  few 
letters  worth  their  weight  in  gold,  from  good  men 
and  true,  writers  and  critics,  who  thank  me  for 
a  book  which  fulfils  its  aim  and  artistic  purpose, 
while  on  the  other  hand  there  are  some  from 
people  who  find  fault  with  my  book  for  not  doing 
what  I  never  even  attempted  to  do.  Here  is  one 
that  has  given  me  deep  and  unmitigafe^pai^^t 
is  from  an  old  friend,  who,  I  am  told,  is  aggrieved 
because  he  thinks  that  I  have  put  him  into  my 
book,  in  the  form  of  an  unpleasant  character. 
The  worst  of  it  is  that  there  is  enough  truth  in 
it  to  make  it  difficult  for  me  to  deny  it.  My 
character  is,  in  some  superficial  ways,  habits,  and 
tricks  of  speech,  like  Reginald.  Well,  on  hearing 
what  he  felt,  I  wrote  him  a  letter  of  apology  for 
my  carelessness  and  thoughtlessness,  saying  as 
frankly  as  I  could  that  the  character  was  not  in 
any  way  drawn  from  him,  but  that  I  undoubtedly 
had,  almost  unconsciously,  taken  an  external  trait 


14  The  Altar  Fire 

or  two  from  him  ;  adding  that  I  was  truly  and 
heartily  sorry,  and  hoped  that  there  would  be  no 
ill-feeling  ;  and  that  I  valued  his  friendship  even 
more  than  he  probably  imagined.  Here  is  his 
reply  : 

My  DEAR  F — r-.     If  you  spit  on  the  head  of  a 

man  passing  in  the  street  and  then  write  to  him 

1^  few  days  after  to  say  that  all  is  forgiven,   and 

^  that  you  are  sorry  your  aim  was  so  accurate,  you 

don't  mend  matters. 

You  express  a  hope  that  after  what  has  occurred 
there  may  be  no  ill-feeling  between  us.  Well,  you 
have  done  me  what  I  consider  an  injury.  I  have  no 
desirelo're^dy  it ;  if  I  had  a  chance  of  doing  you  a 
good  turn,  I  should  do  it ;  if  I  heard  you  abused,  I 
should  stick  up  for  you.  I  have  no  intention  of 
fnaking  a  grievance  out  of  it.  But  if  you  ask  me 
to  say  that  I  do  not  feel  a  sense  of  wrong,  or  to  ex- 
press a  wish  to  meet  you,  or  to  trust  you  any  longer 
as  I  have  hitherto  trusted  you,  I  must  decline  say- 
ing anything  of  the  kind,  because  it  would  not  be 
true. 

Of  course  I  know  that  there  cannot  be  omelettes 
without  breaking  eggs ;  and  I  suppose  that  there 
cannot  be  what  are  called  psychological  novels^  with- 
out violating  confidences.     But  you  cannot  be  S7ir- 


Reviews  15 

prised,  when  you  encourage  an  old  friend  to  trust 
you  and  confide  in  you,  and  then  draw  an  ugly 
caricature  of  him  in  a  book,  if  he  thinks  the  worse  of 
you  quence.     I  hear  that  the  book  is  a  great 

success  ;  you  must  be  content  with  the  fact  that  the 
yolks  are  as  golden  as  they  are.  Please  do  not  write 
to  me  again  on  the  subject.  I  will  try  to  forget  ity 
and  if  I  succeed,  I  will  let  you  know. 

Yours 

That  is  the  kind  of  letter  that  poisons  Hfe  for 
awhile.  While  I  am  aware  that  I  meant  no 
treachery,  I  am  none  the  less  aware  that  I  have 
contrived  to  be  a  traitor.  Of  course  one  vows  one 
will  never  write  another  line ;  but  I  do  not  sup- 
pose I  shall  keep  the  vow.  I  reply  shortly,  eat- 
ing all  the  dirt  I  can  collect ;  and  I  shall  try  to 
forget  it  too  ;  though  it  is  a  shabby  end  of  an  old 
friendship. 

Then  I  turn  to  the  reviews.  I  find  them  grac- 
ious, respectful,  laudatory.  They  are  to  be  taken 
cum  gra?io,  of  course.  When  an  enthusiastic  re- 
viewer says  that  I  have  passed  at  one  stride  into 
the  very  first  class  of  contemporary  writers,  I  do 
not  feel  particularly  elated,  though  I  am  undeni- 
ably pleased.  I  find  my  conception,  my  structure, 
my  style,  my  descriptions,  my  character- drawing, 


1 6  The  Altar  Fire 

liberally  and  generously  praised.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  the  book  has  been  really  successful 
beyond  my  wildest  hopes.  If  I  were  in  any 
doubt,  the  crop  of  letters  from  editors  and  pub- 
lishers asking  me  for  articles  and  books  of  every 
kind,  and  offering  me  incredible  terms,  would 
convince  me. 

Now  what  do  I  honestly  feel  about  all  this  ?  I 
will  try  for  my  own  benefit  to  say.  Of  course 
I  am  very  much  pleased,  but  the  odd  thing  is 
that  I  am  not  more  pleased.  I  can  say  quite  un- 
affectedly that  it  does  not  turn  my  head  in  the 
least.  I  reflect  that  if  this  had  happened  when  I 
began  to  write,  I  should  have  been  beside  myself 
with  delight,  full  of  self-confidence,  blown  out 
with  wind,  like  the  frog  in  the  fable.  Kven  now 
there  is  a  deep  satisfaction  in  having  done  what 
one  has  tried  to  do.  But  instead  of  raking  in  the 
credit,  I  am  more  inclined  to  be  grateful  for  my 
good  fortune.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  found  something 
valuable  rather  than  made  something  beautiful  ; 
as  if  I  had  stumbled  on  a  nugget  of  gold  or  a 
pearl  of  price.  I  am  very  fatalistic  about  writing  ; 
one  is  given  a  certain  thing  to  say,  and  the  power 
to  say  it ;  it  does  not  come  by  effort,  but  by  a 
pleasant  felicity.      After  all,  I  reflect,  the  book  is 


My  Book  17 

only  a  good  story,  well  told.  I  do  not  feel  like  a 
benefactor  of  the  human  race,  but  at  the  best  like 
a  skilful  minstrel,  who  has  given  some  innocent 
pleasure.  What,  after  all,  does  it  amount  to  ?  I 
have  touched  to  life,  perhaps,  a  few  gracious,  ten- 
der, romantic  fancies — but,  after  all,  the  thoughts 
and  emotions  were  there  to  start  with,  just  as  the 
harmonies  which  the  musician  awakes  are  all 
dormant  in  his  throbbing  strings.  I  have  cre- 
ated nothing,  only  perceived  and  represented 
phenomena.  I  have  gained  no  sensibility,  no 
patience,  no  wisdom  in  the  process.  I  know  no 
more  of  the  secret  of  life  and  love,  than  before  I 
wrote  my  book.  I  am  only  like  a  scientific  in- 
vestigator who  has  discovered  certain  delicate 
processes,  subtle  laws  at  work.  They  were  there 
all  the  time ;  the  temptation  of  the  investigator 
and  of  the  writer  alike,  is  to  yield  to  the  delusion 
that  he  has  made  them,  by  discerning  and  naming 
them.  As  for  the  style,  which  is  highly  praised, 
it  has  not  been  made  by  effort.  It  is  myself.  I 
have  never  written  for  any  other  reason  than 
because  I  liked  writing.  It  has  been  a  pleasure 
to  overcome  difficulties,  to  make  my  way  round 
obstacles,  to  learn  how  to  express  the  vague  and 
intangible  thing.      But  I  deserve  no  credit  for 


1 8  The  Altar  Fire 

this ;  I  should  deserve  credit  if  I  had  made  my- 
self a  good  writer  out  of  a  bad  one  ;  but  I  could 
always  write,  and  I  am  not  a  better  writer,  only 
a  more  practised  one.  There  is  no  satisfaction 
there. 

And  then,  too,  I  find  myself  overshadowed  by 
the  thought  that  I  do  not  want  to  do  worse,  to 
go  downhill,  to  decline.  I  do  not  feel  at  all  sure 
that  I  can  write  a  better  book,  or  so  good  a  one 
indeed.  I  should  dislike  failing  far  more  than  I 
like  having  succeeded.  To  have  reached  a  cer- 
tain standard  makes  it  incumbent  on  one  that 
one  should  not  fall  below  that  standard  ;  and  no 
amount  of  taking  pains  will  achieve  that.  It  can 
only  be  done  through  a  sort  of  radiant  felicity 
of  niood,  which  is  really  not  in  my  power  to 
count  upon.  I  was  happy,  supremely  happy, 
when  I  was  writing  the  book.  I  lighted  upon  a 
fine  conception,  and  it  was  the  purest  joy  to  see 
the  metal  trickle  firmly  from  the  furnace  into  the 
mould.  Can  I  make  such  a  mould  again  ?  Can 
I  count  upon  the  ingots  piled  in  the  fierce  flame  ? 
Can  I  reckon  upon  the  same  temperamental 
glow  ?     I  do  not  know — I  fear  not. 

Here  is  the  net  result — that  I  have  become  a 
sort  of  personage  in  the  world  of  letters      Do  I 


Fame  19 

desire  it  Yes,  in  a  sense  I  do,  but  in  a  sense  I 
do  not.  I  do  not  want  money,  I  do  not  wish 
for  public  appearances.  I  have  no  social  ambi- 
tions. To  be  pointed  out  as  the  distinguished 
novelist  is  distinctly  inconvenient.  People  will 
demand  a  certain  standard  of  talk,  a  certain 
brilliance,  which  I  am  not  in  the  least  capable  of 
giving  them.  I  want  to  sit  at  my  ease  at  the 
banquet  of  life,  not  to  be  ushered  to  the  highest 
rooms.  I  prefer  interesting  and  pleasant  people 
to  important  and  majestic  persons.  Perhaps  if 
I  were  more  simple-minded,  I  should  not  care 
about  the  matter  at  all ;  just  be  grateful  for  the 
increased  warmth  and  amenity  of  life — but  I  am 
not  simple-minded,  I  hate  not  fulfilling  other 
people's  expectations.  I  am  not  a  prodigal,  full- 
blooded,  royal  sort  of  person  at  all.  I  am  not 
conscious  of  greatness,  but  far  more  of  emptiness. 
I  do  not  wish  to  seem  pretentious.  I  have  got 
this  one  faculty  ;  but  it  has  outrun  all  the  rest  of 
me,  and  I  am  aware  that  it  has  drained  the  rest 
of  my  nature.  The  curious  thing  is  that  this  sort 
of  fame  is  the  thing  that  as  a  young  man  I  used 
to  covet.  I  used  to  think  it  would  be  so  sustain- 
ing and  resplendent.  Now  that  it  has  come  to 
me,  in  far  richer  measure,   I   will   not  say  than 


20  The  Altar  Fire 

I  hoped,  but  at  all  events  than  I  had  expected, 
it  does  not  seem  to  be  a  wholly  desirable  thing. 
Fame  is  only  one  of  the  sauces  of  life  ;  it  is  not 
the  food  or  the  spirit  at  all.  The  people  that 
praise  one  are  like  the  courtiers  that  bow  in  the 
anterooms  of  a  king,  between  whom  he  passes  to 
the  lonely  study  where  his  life  is  lived,  I  am  not 
feeling  ungrateful  or  ungenerous ;  but  I  would 
give  all  that  I  have  gained  for  a  new  and  inspiring 
friendship,  or  for  the  certainty  that  I  should  write 
another  book  with  the  same  happiness  as  I  wrote 
my  last  book.  Perhaps  I  ought  to  feel  the  re- 
sponsibility more  !  I  do  feel  it  in  a  sense,  but 
I  have  never  estimated  the  moral  effectiveness  of 
a  writer  of  fiction  very  high  ;  one  comforts  rather 
than  sustains  ;  one  diverts  rather  than  feeds.  If 
I  could  hear  of  one  self-sacrificing  action,  one 
generous  deed,  one  tranquil  surrender  that  had 
been  the  result  of  my  book,  I  should  be  more 
pleased  than  I  am  with  all  the  shower  of  compli- 
ments. Of  course  in  a  sense  praise  makes  life 
more  interesting  ;  but  what  I  really  desire  to 
apprehend  is  the  significance  and  meaning  of  life, 
that  strange  mixture  of  pain  and  pleasure,  of 
commonplace  events  and  raptures  ;  and  my  book 
brings  me  no  nearer  that.     To  feel  God  nearer 


Fame  2 1 

me,  to  feel,  not  by  evidence  but  by  instinct,  that 
there  is  a  Heart  that  cares  for  me,  and  moulded 
me  from  the  clay  for  a  purpose — why,  I  would 
give  all  that  I  have  in  the  world  for  that ! 

Of  course  Maud  will  be  pleased  ;  but  that  will 
be  because  she  believes  that  I  deserve  everything 
and  anything,  and  is  only  surprised  that  the  world 
has  not  found  out  sooner  what  a  marvellous 
person  I  am.  God  knows  I  do  not  undervalue  her 
belief  in  me  ;  but  it  makes  and  keeps  me  humble 
to  feel  how  far  she  is  from  the  truth,  how  far 
from  realising  the  pitiful  weakness  and  emptiness 
of  her  lover  and  husband. 

Is  this,  I  wonder,  how  all  successful  people 
feel  about  fame  ?  The  greatest  of  all  have  often 
never  enjoyed  the  least  touch  of  it  in  their  life- 
time ;  and  they  are  happier  so.  Some  few  rich 
and  generous  natures,  like  Scott  and  Browning, 
have  neither  craved  for  it  nor  valued  it.  Some  of 
the  greatest  have  desired  it,  slaved  for  it,  clung 
to  it.  Yet  when  it  comes,  one  realises  how  small 
a  part  of  life  and  thought  it  fills — unless  indeed 
it  brings  other  desirable  things  with  it ;  and  this 
is  not  the  case  with  me,  because  I  have  all  I 
want.  Well,  if  I  can  but  set  to  work  at  another 
book,  all  these  idle  thoughts  will  die  away  ;  but 


22  The  Altar  Fire 

my  mind  rattles  like  a  shrunken  kernel.  I  must 
kneel  down  and  pray,  as  Blake  and  his  wife  did, 
when  the  visions  deserted  them. 

September  25,  1888. 

Here  is  a  social  instance  of  what  it  means  to 
become  "quite  a  little  man,"  as  Stevenson  used 
to  say.  Some  county  people  near  here,  good- 
natured,  pushing  persons,  who  have  always  been 
quite  civil  but  nothing  more,  invited  themselves 
to  luncheon  here  a  day  or  two  ago,  bringing  with 
them  a  distinguished  visitor.  They  throw  in 
some  nauseous  compliments  to  my  book,  and  say 
that  Lord  Wilburton  wishes  to  make  my  ac- 
quaintance. I  do  not  particularly  want  to 
make  his,  though  he  is  a  man  of  some  note. 
But  there  was  no  pretext  for  declining.  Such  an 
incursion  is  a  distinct  bore  ;  it  clouds  the  morn- 
ing— one  cannot  settle  down  with  a  tranquil 
mind  to  one's  work ;  it  fills  the  afternoon. 
They  came,  and  it  proved  not  uninteresting. 
They  are  pleasant  people  enough,  and  Lord 
Wilburton  is  a  man  who  has  been  everywhere  and 
seen  everybody.  The  fact  that  he  wished  to 
make  my  acquaintance  shows,  no  doubt,  that  I 
have  sailed  into  his  ken,  and  that  he  wishes  to 


Visitors  23 

add  me  to  his  collection.  I  felt  myself  singularly- 
unrewarding.  I  am  not  a  talker  at  the  best  of 
times,  and  to  feel  that  I  am  expected  to  be  witty 
and  suggestive  is  the  last  straw.  Lord  Wilbur- 
ton  discoursed  fluently  and  agreeably.  Lady 
Harriet  said  that  she  envied  me  my  powers  of 
writing,  and  asked  how  I  came  to  think  of  my 
last  brilliant  book,  which  she  had  so  enjoyed.  I 
did  not  know  what  to  say  and  could  not  invent 
anything.  They  made  a  great  deal  of  the  child- 
ren. They  walked  round  the  garden.  They 
praised  everything  ingeniously.  They  could  not 
say  the  house  was  big,  and  so  they  called  it 
convenient.  They  could  not  say  that  the  garden 
was  ample,  but  Lord  Wilburton  said  that  he  had 
never  seen  so  much  ground  go  to  the  acre.  That 
was  neat  enough.  They  made  a  great  point  of 
visiting  my  library,  and  carried  away  my  auto- 
graph, written  with  the  very  same  pen  with 
which  I  wrote  my  great  book.  This  they  called 
a  privilege.  They  made  us  promise  to  go  over  to 
the  castle,  which  I  have  no  great  purpose  of 
doing.  We  parted  with  mutual  good  will,  and 
with  that  increase  of  geniality  on  my  own  part 
which  comes  on  me  at  the  end  of  a  visit.  Al- 
together I  did  not  dislike  it,  though  it  did  not 


24  The  Altar  Fire 

seem  to  me  particularly  worth  while.  To-day 
my  wife  tells  me  that  they  told  the  Fitzpatricks 
that  it  was  a  great  pleasure  seeing  me,  because 
I  was  so  modest  and  unafifected.  That  is  a  court- 
eous way  of  concealing  their  disappointment 
that  I  was  not  more  brilliant.  But,  good 
heavens,  what  did  they  expect?  I  suppose, 
indeed  I  have  no  doubt,  that  if  I  had  talked 
mysteriously  about  my  book,  and  had  described 
the  genesis  of  it,  and  my  method  of  working, 
they  would  have  preferred  that.  Just  as  in  rem- 
iniscences of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  the  people 
who  saw  him  in  later  life  seem  to  have  been 
struck  dumb  by  a  sort  of  tearful  admiration  at 
the  sight  of  the  Duke  condescending  to  eat  his 
dinner,  or  to  light  a  guest's  bedroom  candle- 
stick. Perhaps  if  I  had  been  more  simple-minded 
I  should  have  talked  frankly  about  myself. 
I  don't  know  ;  it  seems  to  me  all  rather  vulgar. 
But  my  visitors  are  kindly  and  courteous  people, 
and  felt,  I  am  sure,  that  they  were  both  receiving 
and  conferring  benefits.  They  will  like  to  de- 
scribe me  and  my  house,  and  they  will  feel  that  I 
am  pleased  at  being  received  on  equal  terms  into 
county  society.  I  don't  put  this  down  at  all 
cynically  ;  but  they  are  not  people  with  whom  I 


Feudal  Inheritances  25 

have  anything  in  common.  I  am  not  of  their 
monde  at  all.  I  belong  to  the  middle  class  and 
they  are  of  the  upper  class.  I  have  a  faint  desire 
to  indicate  that  I  don't  want  to  cross  the  border- 
line, and  that  what  I  desire  is  the  society  of 
interesting  and  congenial  people,  not  the  society 
of  my  social  superiors.  This  is  not  unworldliness 
in  the  least,  merely  hedonism.  Feudalism  runs 
in  the  blood  of  these  people,  and  they  feel,  not 
consciously  but  quite  instinctively,  that  they 
confer  a  benefit  by  making  my  acquaintance. 
"  Doubtless  ye  are  the  people,"  as  Job  said,  but 
I  do  not  want  to  rise  in  the  social  scale.  It  would 
be  the  earthen  pot  and  the  brazen  pot  at  best.  I 
am  quite  content  with  my  own  class,  and  life  is 
not  long  enough  to  change  it,  and  to  learn  the 
habits  of  another.  I  have  no  quarrel  with  the 
aristocracy,  and  do  not  in  the  least  wish  to  level 
them  to  the  ground.  I  am  quite  prepared  to 
acknowledge  them  as  the  upper  class.  They  are, 
as  a  rule,  public-spirited,  courteous  barbarians, 
with  a  sense  of  honour  and  responsibility.  But 
they  take  a  great  many  things  as  matters  of 
course  which  are  to  me  simply  alien.  I  no  more 
wish  to  live  with  them  than  Wright,  my  self- 
respecting  gardener,   wishes  to  live  with  me — 


26  The  Altar  Fire 

though  so  deeply  rooted  are  feudal  ideas  in  the 
blood  of  the  race,  that  Wright  treats  me  with  a 
shade  of  increased  deference  because  I  have  been 
entertaining  a  party  of  I^ords  and  I^adies  ;  and 
the  Vicar's  wife  said  to  Maud  that  she  heard  we 
had  been  giving  a  very  grand  party,  and  would 
soon  be  quite  county  people.  The  poor  woman 
will  think  more  of  my  books  than  she  has  ever 
thought  before.  I  don't  think  this  is  snobbish, 
because  it  is  so  perfectly  instinctive  and  natural. 

But  what  I  wanted  to  say  was  that  this  is  the 
kind  of  benefit  which  is  conferred  by  success ; 
and  for  a  quiet  person,  who  likes  familiar  and 
tranquil  ways,  it  is  no  benefit  at  all ;  indeed, 
rather  the  reverse  ;  unless  it  is  a  benefit  that  the 
station-master  touched  his  hat  to  me  to-day, 
which  he  has  never  done  before.  It  is  a  funny 
little  world.  Meanwhile  I  have  no  ideas,  and 
my  visitors  to-day  haven't  given  me  any,  though 
Lord  Wil  burton  might  be  a  useful  figure  in  a 
book ;  so  perfectly  appointed,  so  quiet,  so  defer- 
ential, so  humorous,  so  deliciously  insincere  ! 

October  4,  1888. 

I  have  happened  to  read  lately,  in  some 
magazines,   certain    illustrated    interviews   with 


Privacy  27 

prominent  people,  which  have  given  me  a  deep 
sense  of  mental  and  moral  nausea.  I  do  not 
think  I  am  afflicted  with  a  strong  sense  of  the 
sacredness  of  a  man's  home  life — at  least,  if  it  is 
sacred  at  all,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  just  as  much 
profaned  by  allowing  visitors  or  strangers  to  see 
it  and  share  it  as  it  is  by  allowing  it  to  be  written 
about  in  a  periodical.  If  it  is  sacred  in  a  peculiar 
sense,  then  only  very  intimate  friends  ought  to 
be  allowed  to  see  it,  and  there  should  be  a  tacit 
sense  that  they  ought  not  to  tell  any  one  outside 
what  it  is  like  ;  but  if  I  am  invited  to  luncheon 
with  a  celebrated  man  whom  I  do  not  know, 
because  I  happen  to  be  staying  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, I  do  not  think  I  violate  his  privacy  by 
describing  my  experience  to  other  people.  If  a 
man  has  a  beautiful  house,  a  happy  interior,  a 
gifted  family  circle,  and  if  he  is  himself  a  re- 
markable man,  it  is  a  privilege  to  be  admitted  to 
it,  it  does  one  good  to  see  it ;  and  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  more  people  who  realise  the  beauty 
and  happiness  of  it  the  better.  The  question 
of  numbers  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Sup- 
pose, for  instance,  that  I  am  invited  to  stay 
with  a  great  man,  and  suppose  that  I  have  a 
talent  for  drawing ;  I  may  sketch  his  house  and 


28  The  Altar  Fire 

his  rooms,  himself  and  his  family,  if  he  does  not 
object — and  it  seems  to  me  that  it  would  be 
churlish  and  affected  of  him  to  object — I  may 
write  descriptive  letters  from  the  place,  giving  an 
account  of  his  domestic  ways,  his  wife  and  family, 
his  rooms,  his  books,  his  garden,  his  talk.  I  do 
not  see  that  there  is  any  reasonable  objection  to  my 
showing  those  sketches  to  other  people  who  are 
interested  in  the  great  man,  or  to  the  descriptive 
letters  or  diary  that  I  write  being  shown  or  read 
to  others  who  do  not  know  him.  Indeed  I  think 
it  is  a  perfectly  natural  and  wholesome  desire  to 
know  something  of  the  life  and  habits  of  great 
men  ;  I  would  go  further,  and  say  that  it  is  an 
improving  and  inspiring  sort  of  knowledge  to  be 
acquainted  with  the  pleasant  details  of  the  well- 
ordered,  contented,  and  happy  life  of  a  high- 
minded  and  effective  man.  Who,  for  instance, 
considers  it  to  be  a  sort  of  treachery  for  the 
world  at  large  to  know  something  of  the  splendid 
and  affectionate  life  of  the  Kingsley  circle  at 
Eversley  Rectory,  or  of  the  Tennyson  circle  at 
Freshwater  ?  to  look  at  pictures  of  the  scene,  to 
hear  how  the  great  men  looked  and  moved  and 
spoke  ?  And  if  it  is  not  profanation  to  hear  and 
see  this  in  the  pages  of  a  biography,  why  is  it  a 


Interviewers  29 

profanation  to  read  and  see  it  in  the  pages  of  a 
magazine  ?  To  object  to  it  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
species  of  prudish  conventionality. 

Only  you  must  be  sure  that  you  get  a  natural, 
simple,  and  unaffected  picture  of  it  all  ;  and  what 
I  object  to  in  the  interviews  which  I  have  been 
reading  is  that  one  gets  an  unnatural,  affected, 
self-conscious,  and  pompous  picture  of  it  all.  To 
go  and  pose  in  your  favourite  .seat  in  a  shrubbery 
or  a  copse,  where  you  think  out  your  books  or 
poems,  in  order  that  an  interviewer  may  take  a 
snap-shot  of  you — especially  if  in  addition  you 
assume  a  look  of  owlish  solemnity  as  though  you 
were  the  prey  of  great  thoughts — that  seems  to  me 
to  be  an  infernal  piece  of  posing.  But  still  worse 
than  that  is  the  kind  of  conversation  in  which 
people  are  tempted  to  indulge  in  the  presence  of 
an  interviewer.  A  man  ought  not  to  say  to  a 
wandering  journalist  whom  he  has  never  seen  be- 
fore, in  the  presence  of  his  own  wife,  that  women 
are  the  inspirers  and  magnetisers  of  the  world, 
and  that  he  owes  all  that  has  made  him  what  he 
is  to  the  sweet  presence  and  sympathetic  tender- 
ness of  his  Bessy.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the 
lowest  kind  of  melodrama.  The  thing  may  be 
perfectly  true,  the  thought  may  be  often  in  his 


30  The  Altar  Fire 

mind,  but  he  cannot  be  accustomed  to  say  such 
things  in  ordinar}'^  life ;  and  one  feels  that  when 
he  says  them  to  an  interviewer  he  does  it  in  a 
thoroughly  self-conscious  mood,  in  order  that  he 
may  make  an  impressive  figure  before  the  public. 
The  conversations  in  the  interviews  I  have  been 
reading  give  me  the  uncomfortable  sense  that 
they  have  been  thought  out  beforehand  from  the 
dramatic  point  of  view  ;  and  indeed  one  earnestly 
hopes  that  this  is  the  solution  of  the  situation, 
because  it  would  make  one  feel  very  faint  if  one 
thought  that  remarks  of  this  kind  were  the  habit- 
ual utterances  of  the  circle — indeed,  it  would  cure 
one  very  effectually  of  the  desire  to  know  anything 
of  the  interiors  of  celebrated  people,  if  one  thought 
that  they  habitually  talked  like  the  heroes  of  a 
Sunday-school  romance.  That  is  why  the  read- 
ing of  these  interviews  is  so  painful,  because,  in 
the  first  place,  one  feels  sure  that  one  is  not  realis- 
ing the  daily  life  of  these  people  at  all,  but  only 
looking  on  at  a  tableau  vivant  prepared  by  them 
for  the  occasion  ;  and  secondly,  it  makes  one  very 
unhappy  to  think  that  people  of  real  eminence 
and  effectiveness  can  condescend  to  behave  in  this 
affected  way  in  order  to  win  the  applause  of  vulgar 
readers.     One  vaguely  hopes,  indeed,  that  some 


Interviewers  31 

of  the  dismal  platitudes  that  they  are  represented 
as  uttering  may  have  been  addressed  to  them  in 
the  form  of  questions  by  the  interviewer,  and  that 
they  have  merely  stammered  a  shamefaced  assent. 
It  makes  a  real  difference,  for  instance,  whether 
as  a  matter  of  fact  a  celebrated  authoress  leads 
her  golden-haired  children  up  to  an  interviewer, 
and  says,  "  These  are  my  brightest  jewels  ;  "  or 
whether,  when  she  tells  her  children  to  shake 
hands,  the  interviewer  says,  "  No  doubt  these  are 
your  brightest  jewels?  "  A  mother  is  hardly  in 
a  position  to  return  an  indignant  negative  to  such 
a  question,  and  if  she  utters  an  idiotic  affirmative, 
she  is  probably  credited  with  the  original  remark 
in^ll  its  unctuousness  ! 

It  is  a  difficult  question  to  decide  what  is  the 
most  simple-minded  thing  to  do,  if  you  are  in  the 
unhappy  position  of  being  requested  to  grant  an 
interview  for  journalistic  purposes.  My  own  feel- 
ing is  that  if  people  really  wish  to  know  how  I 
live,  what  I  wear,  what  I  eat  and  drink,  what 
books  I  read,  what  kind  of  a  house  I  live  in,  they 
are  perfectly  welcome  to  know.  It  does  not  seem 
to  me  that  it  would  detract  from  the  sacredness  of 
my  home  life,  if  a  picture  of  my  dining-room,  with 
the  table  laid  for  luncheon  in  a  very  cramped  per- 


32  The  Altar  Fire 

spective,  or  if  a  photogravure  of  a  scrap  of  grass 
and  shrubbery  that  I  call  my  garden,  were  to  be 
published  in  a  magazine.  All  that  is  to  a  certain 
extent  public  already.  I  should  not  wish  to  have 
a  photograph  of  myself  in  bed,  or  shaving,  pub- 
lished in  a  magazine,  because  those  are  not  mo- 
ments when  I  am  inclined  to  admit  visitors. 
Neither  do  I  particularly  want  my  private  and 
informal  conversation  taken  down  and  reproduced, 
because  that  often  consists  of  opinions  which  are 
not  my  deliberate  and  thought-out  utterances. 
But  I  hope  that  I  should  be  able  to  talk  simply 
and  courteously  to  an  interviewer  on  ordinary 
topics,  in  a  way  that  would  not  discredit  me  if  it 
was  made  public  ;  and  I  hope,  too,  that  decency 
would  restrain  me  from  making  inflated  and 
pompous  remarks  about  my  inner  beliefs  and 
motives,  which  were  not  in  the  least  characteristic 
of  my  usual  method  of  conversation. 

The  truth  is  that  what  spoils  these  records  is 
the  desire  on  the  part  of  worthy  and  active  people 
to  appear  more  impressive  in  ordinary  life  than 
they  actually  are  ;  it  is  a  well-meant  sort  of  hy- 
pocrisy, because  it  is  intended,  in  a  way,  to  influ- 
ience  other  people,  and  to  make  them  think  that 
celebrated  people  live  habitually  on  a  higher  plane 


A  Poet  33 

of  intellect  and  emotion  than  they  do  actually  live 
upon.  My  own  experience  of  meeting  great 
people  is  that  they  are  as  a  rule,  disappointingly 
like  ordinary  people,  both  in  their  tastes  and  iv 
their  conversation.  Very  few  men  or  women 
who  are  extremely  effective  in  practical  or  artistic 
lines,  have  the  energy  or  the  vitality  to  expend 
themselves  very  freely  in  talk  or  social  intercourse. 
They  do  not  save  themselves  up  for  their  speeches 
or  their  books ;  but  they  give  their  best  energies 
to  them,  and  have  little  current  coin  of  high 
thought  left  for  ordinary  life.  The  mischief  is 
that  these  interviews  are  generally  conducted  by 
inquisitive  and  rhetorical  strangers,  not  distin- 
guished for  social  tact  or  overburdened  with  good 
taste ;  and  so  the  whole  occasion  tends  to  wear  a 
melodramatic  air,  which  is  fatal  both  to  artistic 
effect  as  well  as  to  simple  propriety. 

October  9,  1888. 
Let  me  set  against  my  fashionable  luncheon- 
party  of  a  few  weeks  ago  a  visit  which  I  owe  no 
less  to  my  success,  and  which  has  been  a  true  and 
deep  delight  to  me.  I  had  a  note  yesterday  from 
a  man  whom  I  hold  in  great  and  deep  reverence, 
a  man  whom  I  have  met  two  or  three  times,  a 
3 


34  The  Altar  Fire 

poet  indeed,  one  of  our  true  and  authentic  sing- 
ers. He  writes  that  he  is  in  the  neighbourhood  ; 
may  he  come  over  for  a  few  hours  and  renew  our 
acquaintance  ? 

He  came  in  the  morning.  One  has  only  to 
set  eyes  upon  him  to  know  that  one  is  in  the 
presence  of  a  hero,  to  feel  that  his  poetry  just 
streams  from  him  like  light  from  the  sun  ;  that  it 
is  not  the  central  warmth,  but  the  flying  rippling 
radiance  of  the  outward-bound  light,  falling  in 
momentary  beauty  on  the  common  things  about 
his  path.  He  is  a  great  big  man,  carelessly 
dressed,  like  a  Homeric  king.  I  liked  everything 
about  him  from  head  to  foot,  his  big  carelessly 
worn  clothes,  the  bright  tie  thrust  loosely  through 
a  cameo  ring  ;  his  loose  shaggy  locks,  his  strong 
beard.  His  face,  with  its  delicate  pallor,  and 
purely  moulded  features,  had  a  youthful  air  of 
purity  and  health  ;  yet  there  was  a  dim  trouble 
of  thought  on  his  brow,  over  the  great  smiling, 
flashing  grey  eyes.  He  came  in  with  a  sort  of 
royal  greeting,  he  flung  his  big  limbs  on  a  sofa  ; 
he  talked  easily,  quietly,  lavishly,  saying  fine 
things  with  no  efibrt,  dropping  a  subject  quickly 
if  he  thought  it  did  not  interest  me ;  sometimes 
flashing  out  with  a  quick  gesture  of  impatience  or 


The  Poet  35 

gusto,  enjoying  life,  every  moment  and  every 
detail.  His  quick  eyes,  roving  about,  took  in 
each  smallest  point,  not  in  the  weary  feverish 
way  in  which  I  apprehend  a  new  scene,  but  as 
though  he  liked  everything  new  and  unfamiliar, 
like  an  unsated  child.  He  greeted  Maud  and  the 
children  with  a  kind  of  chivalrous  tenderness  and 
intimacy,  as  though  he  loved  all  pretty  and  tender 
things,  and  took  joy  in  their  nearness.  He  held 
Alec  between  his  knees,  and  played  with  him 
while  he  talked.  The  children  took  possession 
of  him,  as  if  they  had  known  him  all  their  lives. 
And  yet  there  was  no  touch  of  pose,  no  conscious- 
ness of  greatness  or  vigour  about  him.  He  was 
as  humble,  grateful,  interested,  as  though  he 
were  a  poor  stranger  dependent  on  our  bounty.  I 
asked  him  in  a  quiet  moment  about  his  work. 
"No,  I  am  writing  nothing,"  he  said  with  a 
smile,  "I  have  said  all  I  have  got  to  say," — and 
then  with  a  sudden  humorous  flash,  **  though  I 
believe  I  should  be  able  to  write  more  if  I  could 
get  decent  paper  and  respectable  type  to  print  my 
work."  I  ventured  to  ask  if  he  did  not  feel  any 
desire  to  write  ?  "No,"  he  said,  "  frankly  I  do 
not — the  world  is  so  full  of  pleasant  things  to  do 
and  hear  and  see,  that  I  sometimes  think  myself 


36  The  Altar  Fire 

almost  a  fool  for  having  spent  so  much  time  in 
scribbling.  Do  you  know,  "  he  went  on,  "  a  de- 
licious story  I  picked  up  the  other  day  ?  A  man 
was  travelling  in  some  God-forsaken  out-of-the- 
way  place — I  believe  it  was  the  Andes — and  he 
fell  in  with  an  old  podgy  Roman  priest  who  was 
going  everywhere,  in  a  state  of  perpetual  fatigue, 
taking  long  expeditions  every  day,  and  returning 
worn-out  in  the  evening,  but  perfectly  content. 
The  man  saw  a  good  deal  of  the  priest,  and  asked 
him  what  he  was  doing.  The  priest  smiled  and 
said,  *  Well,  I  will  tell  you.  I  had  an  illness 
some  time  ago  and  believed  that  I  was  going  to 
die.  One  evening — I  was  half  unconscious — I 
thought  I  saw  some  one  standing  by  my  bed.  I 
looked,  and  it  was  a  young  man  with  a  beautiful 
and  rather  severe  face,  whom  I  knew  to  be  an 
angel,  who  was  gazing  at  me  rather  strangely.  I 
thought  it  was  the  messenger  of  death,  and — for 
I  was  wishing  to  be  gone  and  have  done  with  it 
all — I  said  something  to  him  about  being  ready 
to  depart — and  then  added  that  I  was  waiting 
hopefully  to  see  the  joys  of  Paradise,  the  glory 
of  the  saints  in  light.  He  looked  at  me  rather 
fixedly,  and  said,  "I  do  not  know  why  you 
should  say  that,  and  why  you  should  expect  to 


A  Parable  for  Writers  37 

take  so  much  pleasure  in  the  beauty  of  heaven, 
when  you  have  taken  so  little  trouble  to  see  any- 
thing of  the  beauty  of  earth  ; ' '  and  then  he  left 
me  ;  and  I  reflected  that  I  had  always  been  doing 
my  work  in  a  dull  humdrum  way,  in  the  same 
place  all  my  life  ;  and  I  determined  that,  if  I  got 
well,  I  would  go  about  and  see  something  of  the 
glory  that  is  revealed  to  us,  and  not  expect  only 
the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed  to  us.'  It  is  a  fine 
story,"  he  went  on,  "  aUd  makes  a  parable  for  us 
writers,  who  are  inclined  to  think  too  much  about 
our  work,  and  disposed  to  see  that  it  is  very  good, 
like  God  brooding  over  the  world."  He  sate  for 
a  little,  smiling  to  himself  And  then  I  plied 
him  with  questions  about  his  writing,  how  his 
thoughts  came  to  him,  how  he  worked  them  out. 
He  told  me  as  if  he  was  talking  about  some  one 
else,  half  wondering  that  there  could  be  anything 
to  care  about.  I  have  heard  many  craftsmen  talk 
about  their  work,  but  never  one  who  talked  with 
such  detachment.  As  a  rule,  writers  talk  with  a 
secret  glee,  and  with  a  deprecating  humility  that 
deceives  no  one  ;  but  the  great  man  talked,  not 
as  if  he  cared  to  think  about  it,  but  because  it 
happened  to  interest  me.  He  strolled  with  me, 
he  lunched ;  and  he  thanked  us  when  he  went 


38  The  Altar  Fire 

away  with  an  earnest  and  humble  thankfulness, 
as  though  we  had  extended  our  hospitality  to  an 
obscure  and  unworthy  guest.  And  then  his  praise 
of  my  own  books — it  was  all  so  natural ;  not  as  if 
he  had  come  there  with  fine  compliments  pre- 
pared, with  incense  to  bum  ;  but  speaking  about 
them  as  though  they  were  in  his  mind,  and  he 
could  not  help  it.  **  I  read  all  you  write,"  he 
said  ;  "  ah,  you  go  deep — you  are  a  lucky  fellow, 
to  be  able  to  see  so  far  and  so  minutely,  and  to 
bring  it  all  home  to  our  blind  souls.  He  must  be 
a  terrible  fellow  to  live  with,"  he  said,  smiling  at 
my  wife.  "  It  must  be  like  being  married  to  a 
doctor,  and  feeling  that  he  knows  so  much  more 
about  one  than  one  knows  about  oneself — but  he 
sees  what  is  best  and  truest,  thank  God;  and  says 
it  with  the  voice  of  an  angel,  speaking  softly  out 
of  his  golden  cloud." 

I  can't  say  what  words  like  these  have  meant 
to  me  ;  but  the  visit  itself,  the  sight  of  this  strong, 
equable,  good-humoured  man,  with  no  feverish 
ambitions,  no  hankering  after  fame  or  recognition, 
has  done  even  more.  I  have  heard  it  said  that 
he  is  indolent,  that  he  has  not  sufficient  sense  of 
responsibility  for  his  gifts.  But  the  man  has 
done   a   great  work  for  his   generation ;  he  has 


Work  to  Live  39 

written  poetry  of  the  purest  and  finest  quality. 
Is  not  that  enough  ?  I  cannot  understand  the 
mere  credit  we  give  to  work,  without  any  refer- 
ence to  the  object  of  the  work,  or  the  spirit  in 
which  it  is  done.  We  think  with  respect  of  the 
man  who  makes  a  fortune,  or  who  fills  an  ofl&cial 
post,  the  duties  of  which  do  nothing  in  particular 
for  any  one.  It  is  a  kind  of  obsession  with  us 
practical  Westerners  ;  of  course  a  man  ought  to 
contribute  to  the  necessary  work  of  the  world  ; 
but  many  men  spend  their  lives  in  work  which  is 
not  necessary  ;  and,  after  all,  we  are  sent  into  the 
world  to  live,  and  work  is  only  a  part  of  life.  We 
work  to  live,  we  do  not  live  to  work.  Even  if 
we  were  all  socialists,  we  should,  I  hope,  have 
the  grace  to  dig  the  gardens  and  make  the  clothes 
of  our  poets  and  prophets,  so  as  to  give  them  the 
leisure  they  need. 

I  do  not  question  the  instinct  of  my  hero 
in  the  matter ;  he  lives  eagerly  and  peace- 
fully ;  he  touches  into  light  the  spirits  of  those 
who  draw  near  to  him ;  and  I  admire  a  man 
who  knows  how  to  stop  when  he  has  done  his 
best  work,  and  does  not  spur  and  whip  his 
tired  mind  into  producing  feebler,  limper,  duller 
work    of    ihe    same    kind  ;    how    few    of    our 


40  The  Altar  Fire 

great  writers  have   known  when   to  hold  their 
hand  ! 

God  be  praised  for  great  men  !  My  poet  to-day 
has  made  me  feel  that  life  is  a  thing  to  be  lived 
eagerly  and  high-heart edly  ;  that  the  world  is 
full  of  beautiful,  generous,  kindly  things,  of  free 
air  and  sunshine;  and  that  we  ought  to  find 
leisure  to  drink  it  all  in,  and  to  send  our  hearts 
out  in  search  of  love  and  beauty  and  God — for 
these  things  are  all  about  us,  if  we  could  but  feel 
and  hear  and  see  them. 

October  12,  1888. 
How  absurd  it  is  to  say  that  a  writer  could  not 
write  a  large,  wise,  beautiful  book  unless  he  had  a 
great  soul — it  is  almost  like  saying  that  an  artist 
could  not  paint  a  fine  face  unless  he  had  a  fine 
face  himself.  It  is  all  a  question  of  seeing  clearly, 
and  having  a  skilled  hand.  There  is  nothing  to 
make  one  believe  that  Shakespeare  had  a  particu- 
larl)^  noble  or  beautiful  character ;  and  some  of 
our  greatest  writers  have  been  men  of  unbalanced, 
childish,  immature  temperaments,  full  of  vanity 
and  pettiness.  Of  course  a  man  must  be  inter- 
ested in  what  he  is  describing  ;  but  I  think  that  a 
man  of  a  naturally  great,  wise,  and  lofty  vSpirit  is 


The  Artist's  Equipment         41 

so  disposed  as  a  rule  to  feel  that  his  qualities  are 
instinctive,  and  so  read}^  to  credit  other  people 
with  them,  that  it  does  not  occur  to  him  to  depict 
those  qualities.  I  am  not  sure  that  the  best 
equipment  for  an  artist  is  not  that  he  should  see 
and  admire  great  and  noble  and  beautiful  things, 
and  feel  his  own  deficiency  in  them  acutely,  de- 
siring them  with  the  desire  of  the  moth  for  the 
star.  The  best  characters  in  my  own  books  have 
been,  I  am  sure,  the  people  least  like  myself,  be- 
cause the  creation  of  a  character  that  one  whole- 
heartedly admires,  and  that  yet  is  far  out  of  one's 
reach,  is  the  most  restful  and  delightful  thing  in 
the  world.^  If  one  is  unready  in  speech,  thinking 
of  one's  epigrams  three  hours  after  the  occasion 
for  them  has  arisen,  how  pleasant  to  draw  the 
man  who  says  the  neat,  witty,  appropriate,  con- 
soling thing  !  If  one  suffers  from  timidity,  from 
meanness,  from  selfishness,  what  a  delight  to  de- 
pict the  man  who  is  brave,  generous,  unselfish  ! 
Of  course  the  quality  of  a  man's  mind  flows  into 
and  over  his  work,  but  that  is  rather  like  the  varnish 
of  the  picture  than  its  tints — it  is  the  medium 
rather  than  the  design.  The  artistic  creation  of 
ideal  situations  is  often  a  sort  of  refuge  to  the  man 
who  knows  that  he  makes  a  mess  of  the  beautiful 


42  The  Altar  Fire 

and  simple  relations  of  life.  The  artist  is  fastid- 
ious and  moody,  feeling  the  pressure  of  strained 
nerves  and  tired  faculties,  easily  discouraged, 
disgusted  by  the  superficial  defect,  the  tiny  blot 
that  spoils  alike  the  noble  character,  the  charming 
prospect,  the  attractive  face.  He  sees,  let  us  say, 
a  person  with  a  beautiful  face  and  an  ugly  hand. 
The  normal  person  thinks  of  the  face  and  forgets 
the  hand.  The  artist  thinks  with  pain  of  the 
hand  and  forgets  the  face.  He  desires  an  im- 
possible perfection^  and  flies  for  safety  to  the  little 
world  that  he  can  make  and  sway.  That  is  why 
artists,  as  a  rule,  love  twilight  hours,  shaded 
rooms,  half-tones,  subdued  hues,  because  what  is 
common,  staring,  tasteless,  is  blurred  and  hidden. 
Men  of  rich  vitality  are  generally  too  much  occu- 
pied with  life  as  it  is,  its  richness,  its  variety,  its 
colour  and  fragrance,  to  think  wistfully  of  life  as 
it  might  be.  The  unbridled,  sensuous,  luxurious 
strain,  that  one  finds  in  so  many  artists,  comes  from 
a  lack  of  moral  temperance,  a  snatching  at  de- 
lights. They  fear  dreariness  and  ugliness  so 
much  that  they  welcome  any  intoxication  of 
pleasure.  But  after  all,  it  is  clearness  of  vision 
that  makes  the  artist,  the  power  of  disentangling 
the  central  feature  from  the  surrounding  details, 


Artist  and  Moralist  43 

the  power  of  subordinating  accessories,  of  seeing 
which  minister  to  the  innermost  impression,  and 
which  distract  and  blur.  An  artist  who  creates  a 
great  character  need  not  necessarily  even  desire  to 
attain  the  great  qualities  which  he  discerns  ;  he 
sees  them,  as  he  sees  the  vertebrae  of  the  mountain 
ridge  under  pasture  and  woodland,  as  he  sees  the 
structure  of  the  tree  under  its  mist  of  green  ;  but 
to  see  beauty  is  not  necessarily  to  desire  it ;  for, 
as  in  the  mountain  and  the  tree,  it  may  have  no 
ethical  significance  at  all,  only  a  symbolical 
meaning.  The  best  art  is  inspired  more  by  an 
intellectual  force  than  by  a  vital  sympathy.  Of 
course  to  succeed  as  a  novelist  in  England  to-day, 
one  must  have  a  dash  of  the  moralist,  because  an 
English  audience  is  far  more  preoccupied  with/ 
moral  ideals  than  with  either  intellectual  or  artis-v 
tic  ideals.  The  English  reader  desires  that  love 
should  be  loyal  rather  than  passionate  ;  he  thinks 
ultimate  success  a  more  impressive  thing  than 
ultimate  failure ;  he  loves  sadness  as  a  contrast  and 
preface  to  laughter.  He  prefers  that  the  patriarch 
Job  should  end  by  having  a  nice  new  family  of 
children  and  abundant  flocks,  rather  than  that  he 
should  sink  into  death  among  the  ashes,  refusing 
to  curse  God  for  his  reverses.     His  view  of  exist- 


44  The  Altar  Fire 

ence  after  death  is  that  Dives  should  join  lyazarus 
in  Abraham's  bosom.  To  succeed,  one  must 
compromise  with  this  comfortable  feeling,  sacri- 
ficing, if  needs  be,  the  artistic  conscience,  because 
the  place  of  the  minstrel  in  England  is  after  the 
banquet,  when  the  warriors  are  pleasantly  tired, 
have  put  oif  the  desire  for  meat  and  drink,  and  the 
fire  roars  and  crackles  in  the  hearth.  When 
Ruskin  deserted  his  clouds  and  peaks,  his  sunsets 
and  sunrises,  and  devoured  his  soul  over  the 
j  brutalities  and  uglinesses  and  sordid  inequalities  of 
I  life,  it  was  all  put  down  to  the  obscure  pressure 
i  of  mental  disease.  Ophelia  does  not  sob  and 
struggle  in  the  current,  but  floats  dreamily  to 
death  in  a  bed  of  meadow-flowers. 

October  21,  1888 
Let  me  try  to  recollect  for  my  own  amusement 
how  it  was  that  my  last  book  grew  up  and  took 
shape.  How  well  I  remember  the  day  and  the 
hour  when  the  first  thought  came  to  me  !  Some 
one  was  dining  here,  and  told  a  story  about  a 
friend  of  his,  and  an  unhappy  misunderstanding 
between  him  and  a  girl  whom  he  loved,  or  thought 
he  loved.  A  figure,  two  figures,  a  scene,  a  conversa- 
tion, came  into  my  head,  absolutely  and  perfectly 


The  Evolution  of  a  Book        45 

life-like.  I  lay  awake  half  the  night,  I  remember, 
over  it.  How  did  those  people  come  to  be  in  ex- 
actly that  situation?  How  would  it  develop? 
At  first  it  was  just  the  scene  by  itself,  nothing 
more ;  a  room  which  filled  itself  with  furniture. 
There  were  doors — where  did  they  lead  to  ?  There 
were  windows — where  did  they  look  out  ?  The 
house  was  full,  too,  of  other  people,  whose  quiet 
movements  I  heard.  One  person  entered  the  room, 
and  then  another ;  and  so  the  story  opened  out. 
I  saw  the  wrong  word  spoken,  I  saw  the  mist  of 
doubt  and  distress  that  filled  the  girl's  mind ;  I 
felt  that  I  would  have  given  anything  to  intervene, 
to  explain  ;  but  instead  of  speaking  out,  the  girl 
confided  in  the  wrong  person,  who  had  an  old 
grudge  against  the  man,  so  old  that  it  had  become 
instinctive  and  irrational.  So  the  thing  evolved  it- 
self. Then  at  one  time  the  story  got  entangled  and 
confused.  I  could  go  no  further.  The  characters 
were  by  this  time  upon  the  scene,  but  they  could 
not  speak.  I  then  saw  that  I  had  made  a  mistake 
somewhere.  The  scaffolding  was  all  taken  down, 
spar  by  spar,  and  still  the  defect  was  not  revealed. 
I  must  go,  I  saw,  backwards ;  and  so  I  felt  my 
way,  like  a  man  groping  in  the  dark,  into  what 
had  gone  before,  and  suddenly  came  out  into  the 


46  The  Altar  Fire 

light.  It  was  a  mistake  far  back  in  the  concep- 
tion. I  righted  it,  and  the  story  began  to  evolve 
itself  again  ;  this  time  with  a  delicate  certainty, 
that  made  me  feel  I  was  on  the  track  at  last.  An 
impressive  scene  was  sacrificed — it  was  there  that 
my  idea  had  gone  wrong  !  As  to  the  writing  of  it, 
I  cannot  say  it  was  an  effort.  It  wrote  itself.  I 
was  not  creating  ;  I  was  describing  and  selecting. 
There  was  one  scene  in  particular,  a  scene  which 
has  been  praised  by  all  the  reviewers.  How  did 
I  invent  it  ?  I  do  not  know.  I  had  no  idea  what 
the  characters  were  to  say  when  I  began  to  write 
it,  but  one  remark  grew  inevitably  and  surely  out 
of  the  one  before,  I  was  never  at  a  loss  ;  I  never 
stuck  fast ;  indeed  the  one  temptation  which  I 
firmly  and  constantly  resisted  was  the  temptation 
to  write  morning,  noon,  and  night.  Sometimes 
I  had  a  horrible  fear  that  I  might  not  live  to  set 
down  what  was  so  clear  in  my  mind  ;  but  there  is 
a  certain  fireshness  which  comes  from  self-restraint. 
Day  after  day,  as  I  strolled,  and  read,  and  talked, 
I  used  to  hug  myself  at  the  thought  of  the  beloved 
evening  hours  that  were  coming,  when  I  should 
fling  myself  upon  the  book  with  a  passionate  zest, 
and  feel  it  grow  under  my  hand.  And  then  it  was 
done  !     I  remember  writing  the  last  words,  and 


The  Genesis  of  Beauty         47 

the  conviction  came  upon  me  that  it  was  the  end. 
There  was  more  to  be  told ;  the  story  stretched 
on  into  the  distance ;  but  it  was  as  though  the 
frame  of  the  picture  had  suddenly  fallen  upon 
the  canvas,  and  I  knew  that  just  so  much  and  no 
more  was  to  be  seen.  And  then,  as  though  to 
show  me  plainly  that  the  work  was  over,  the  next 
day  came  an  event  which  drew  my  mind  off  the 
book.  I  had  had  a  period  of  unclouded  health  and 
leisure,  everything  had  combined  to  help  me,  and 
then  this  event,  of  which  I  need  not  speak,  came 
and  closed  the  book  at  the  right  moment. 

What  wonder  if  one  grows  fatalistic  about  writ- 
ing ;  that  one  feels  that  one  can  only  say  what 
is  given  one  to  say !  And  now,  dry  and  arid  as  my 
mind  is,  I  would  give  all  I  have  for  a  renewal 
of  that  beautiful  glow,  which  I  cannot  recover.  It 
is  misery — I  can  conceive  no  greater — to  be  bound 
hand  and  foot  in  this  helpless  silence. 

November^,  1888. 
It  is  a  joy  to  think  of  the  way  in  which  the 
best,  most  beautiful,  most  permanent  things  have 
stolen  unnoticed  into  life.  I  like  to  think  of 
Wordsworth,  an  obscure,  poor,  perverse,  absurd 
man,  living  in  the  comer  of  the  great  house  at 


48  The  Altar  Fire 

Alfoxden,  walking  in  the  moonlight  with  Cole- 
ridge, living  on  milk  and  eggs,  utterly  unaccount- 
able and  puerile  to  the  sensible  man  of  affairs, 
while  the  two  planned  the  Lyrical  Ballads.  I 
like  to  think  of  Keats,  sitting  lazily  and  discon- 
tentedly in  the  villa  garden  at  Hampstead,  with 
his  illness  growing  upon  him  and  his  money 
melting  away,  scribbling  the  Ode  to  the  Night- 
ingale^ and  caring  so  little  about  the  fate  of  it 
that  it  was  only  by  chance,  as  it  were,  that  the 
pencil  scraps  were  rescued  from  the  book  where 
he  had  shut  them.  I  love  to  think  of  Charlotte 
Bronte,  in  the  bare  kitchen  of  the  little  house  in 
the  grey,  wind-swept  village  on  the  edge  of  the 
moorland,  penning,  in  sickness  and  depression, 
the  scenes  oi  Jane  Eyre,  without  a  thought  that 
she  was  doing  anything  unusual  or  lasting.  We 
surround  such  scenes  with  a  heavenly  halo,  born 
of  the  afterglow  of  fame ;  we  think  them  roman- 
tic, beautiful,  thrilled  and  flushed  by  passionate 
joy ;  but  there  was  little  that  was  delightful  about 
them  at  the  time. 

The  most  beautiful  of  all  such  scenes  is  the  tale 
of  the  maiden- wife  in  the  stable  at  Bethlehem, 
with  the  pain  and  horror  and  shame  of  the  tragic 
experience,  in  all  its  squalid  publicity,  told  in 


Greatness  in  Art  49 

those  simple  words,  which  I  never  hear  without  a 
smile  that  is  full  of  tears,  '  *  because  there  was  no 
room  for  them  in  the  inn . ' '  We  poor  human  souls, 
knowing  what  that  event  has  meant  for  the  race, 
make  the  bare,  ugly  place  seemly  and  lovely,  sur- 
rounding the  Babe  with  a  tapestry  of  heavenly 
forms,  holy  lights,  rapturous  sounds;  taking  the 
terror  and  the  meanness  of  the  scene  away,  and 
thereby,  by  our  clumsy  handling,  losing  the 
divine  seal  of  the  great  mystery,  the  fact  that 
hope  can  spring,  in  unstained  and  sublime  radi- 
ance, from  the  vilest,  lowest,  meanest,  noisiest 
conditions  that  can  well  be  conceived. 

November  20,  1888, 
I  wonder  aimlessly  what  it  is  that  makes  a 
book,  a  picture,  a  piece  of  music,  a  poem,  great. 
When  any  of  these  things  has  become  a  part  of 
one's  mind  and  soul,  utterly  and  entirely  familiar, 
one  is  tempted  to  think  that  the  precise  form  of 
them  is  inevitable.     That  is  a  great  mistake. 

Here  is  a  tiny  instance.     I  see  that  in  the 
Lycidas  Milton  wrote: 

"  Who  would  not  sing  for  Lycidas  ?    He  well  knew 
Himself  to  sing  and  build  the  lofty  rhyme." 

The  word  "well"  occurs  in  two  MSS.,  and  it 

4 


50  The  Altar  Fire 

seems  to  have  been  struck  out  in  the  proof.  The 
introduction  of  the  word  seems  barbarous,  un- 
metrical,  an  outrage  on  the  beauty  of  the  line. 
Yet  Milton  must  have  thought  that  it  was  needed, 
and  have  only  decided  by  an  after-thought  that 
it  was  better  away.  If  it  had  been  printed  so, 
we  should  equally  have  thought  its  omission 
barbarous  and  inartistic. 

And  thus,  to  an  artist,  there  must  be  many 
ways  of  working  out  a  conception .  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  the  theory  that  the  form  is  so  inevitable, 
because  what  great  artist  was  ever  perfectly  con- 
tent with  the  form  ?  The  greater  the  artist,  the 
more  conscious  he  probably  is  of  the  imperfection 
of  his  work ;  and  if  it  could  be  bettered,  how  is  it 
then  inevitable  ?  It  is  only  our  familiarity  with 
it  that  gives  it  inevitableness.  A  beautiful  build- 
ing gains  its  mellow  outline  by  a  hundred  acci- 
dents of  wear  and  weather,  never  contemplated  by 
the  designer's  mind.  We  love  it  so,  we  would  not 
have  it  otherwise;  but  we  should  have  loved  it 
just  as  intensely  if  it  had  been  otherwise.  Only 
a  small  part,  then,  of  the  greatness  of  artistic  work 
is  what  we  ourselves  bring  to  it ;  and  it  becomes 
great,  not  only  from  itself,  but  from  the  fact  that 
it  fits  our  minds  as  the  dagger  fits  the  sheath. 


Greatness  in  Art  51 

The  greatness  of  a  conception  "depends  largely 
upon  its  being  near  enough  to  our  own  concep- 
tions, and  yet  a  little  greater,  just  as  the  vault  of  a 
great  church  gives  one  a  larger  sense  of  immen- 
sity than  the  sky  with  its  sailing  clouds.  Indeed 
it  is  often  the  very  minuteness  of  a  conception 
rather  than  its  vastness  that  makes  it  great.  It 
must  not  be  outside  our  range.  As  to  the  form, 
it  depends  upon  some  curious  felicity  of  hand, 
and  touch,  and  thought.  Suppose  that  a  great 
painter  gave  a  rough  pencil-sketch  of  a  picture  to 
a  hundred  students,  and  told  them  all  to  work  it 
out  in  colour.  Some  few  of  the  results  would  be 
beautiful,  the  majority  would  be  still  uninteresting 
and  tame. 

Thus  I  am  somewhat  of  a  fatalist  about  art, 
because  it  seems  to  depend  upon  a  lucky  union  of 
conception  and  technical  instinct.  The  saddest 
proof  of  which  is  that  many  good  and  even  great 
artists  have  not  improved  in  greatness  as  their 
skill  improved.  The  youthful  works  of  genius 
are  generally  the  best,  their  very  crudities  and 
stiffnesses  adorable. 

The  history  of  art  and  of  literature  alike  seem  to 
point  to  the  fact  that  each  artistic  soul  has  a  flow- 
ering period,  which  generally  comes  early,  rarely 


52  The  Altar  Fire 

comes  late  ;  and  therefore  the  supreme  artist  ought 
to  know  when  the  bloom  is  over,  when  his  good 
work  is  done.  And  then,  I  think,  he  ought  to 
be  ready  to  abjure  his  art,  to  drown  his  book, 
like  Prospero,  and  set  himself  to  live  rather  than 
to  produce.  But  what  a  sacrifice  to  demand  of  a 
man,  and  how  few  attain  it  !  Most  men  cannot 
do  without  their  work,  and  go  on  to  the  end 
producing  more  feeble,  more  tired,  more  manner- 
ised  work,  till  they  cloud  the  beauty  of  their 
prime  by  masses  of  inferior  and  uninspired 
production. 

November  2^,  1888. 

Soft  wintry  skies,  touched  with  faintest  gleams 
of  colour,  like  a  dove's  wing,  blue  plains  and 
heights,  over  the  nearer  woodland  ;  everywhere 
fallen  rotting  leaf  and  oozy  water-channel;  every- 
thing, tint  and  form,  restrained,  austere,  delicate  ; 
nature  asleep  and  breathing,  gently  in  the  cool 
airs;  a  tranquil  and  sober  hopefulness  abroad. 

I  walked  alone  in  deep  woodland  lanes,  content 
for  once  to  rest  and  dream.  The  country  seemed 
absolutely  deserted  ;  such  labour  as  was  going 
forward  was  being  done  in  barn  and  byre  ;  beasts 
being  fed,  hurdles  made. 


The  Beggar's  Child  53 

I  passed  in  a  solitary  road  a  draggled  ugly 
wotaan,  a  tramp,  wheeling  an  old  perambulator 
full  of  dingy  clothes  and  sordid  odds  and  ends  ; 
she  looked  at  me  sullenly  and  suspiciously. 
Where  she  was  going  God  knows  :  to  camp,  I 
suppose,  in  some  dingle,  with  ugly  company ;  to 
beg,  to  lie,  to  purloin,  perhaps  t3  drink ;  but  by 
the  perambulator  walked  a  little  boy,  seven  or 
eight  years  old,  grotesquely  clothed  in  patched 
and  clumsy  garments  ;  he  held  on  to  the  rim, 
dirty,  unkempt ;  but  he  was  happy,  too  ;  he  was 
with  his  mother,  of  whom  he  had  no  fear ;  he 
had  been  fed  as  the  birds  are  fed ;  he  had  no 
anxious  thoughts  of  the  future,  and  as  he  went, 
he  crooned  to  himself  a  soft  song,  like  the  piping 
of  a  finch  in  a  wayside  thicket.  What  was  in 
his  tiny  mind  and  heart  ?  I  do  not  know ;  but 
perhaps,  a  little  touch  of  the  peace  of  God. 

November  2^y  1888. 
Another  visitor  !  I  am  not  sure  that  his  visit 
is  not  a  more  distinguished  testimonial  than  any 
I  have  yet  received.  He  is  a  young  Don  with  a 
very  brilliant  record  indeed.  He  wrote  to  ask  if 
he  might  have  the  honour  of  calling,  and  of  renew- 
ing a  very  slight  acquaintance.     He  came   and 


54  The  Altar  Fire 

conquered.  I  am  still  crushed  and  battered  by 
his  visit.  I  feel  like  a  land  that  has  been  harried 
by  an  invading  army.  Let  me  see  if,  dizzy  and 
unmanned  as  I  am,  I  can  recall  some  of  the  inci- 
dents of  his  visit.  He  has  only  been  gone  an 
hour,  yet  I  feel  as  though  a  month  had  elapsed 
since  he  entered  the  room,  since  I  was  a  moder- 
ately happy  man.  He  is  a  very  pleasant  fellow 
to  look  at,  small,  trim,  well-appointed,  courteous, 
friendly,  with  a  deferential  air.  His  eyes  gleam 
brightly  through  his  glasses,  and  he  has  brisk 
dexterous  gestures.  He  was  genial  enough  till 
he  settled  down  upon  literature,  and  since  then 
what  waves  and  storms  have  gone  over  me  !  I 
have  or  had  a  grovelling  taste  for  books ;  I  pos- 
sess a  large  number,  and  I  thought  I  had  read 
them.  But  I  feel  now,  not  so  much  as  if  I  had 
read  the  wrong  ones,  but  as  if  those  I  had  read 
were  only,  so  to  speak,  the  anterooms  and  corri- 
dors which  led  to  the  really  important  books— 
and  of  them,  it  seems,  I  know  nothing.  Epi- 
grams flowed  from  his  tongue,  brilliant  character- 
isations, admirable  judgments.  He  had  ' '  placed' ' 
every  one,  and  literature  to  him  seemed  like  a 
great  mosaic  in  which  he  knew  the  position  of 
every  cube.     He  knew  all  the  movements   and 


The  Don's  Visit  55 

tendencies  of  literature,  and  books  seemed  to  him 
to  be  important,  not  because  they  had  a  message 
for  the  mind  and  heart,  but  because  they  illus- 
trated a  tendency,  or  were  a  connecting  link  in  a 
chain.  He  quoted  poems  I  had  never  heard  of, 
he  named  authors  I  had  never  read.  He  did  it 
all  modestly  and  quietly  enough,  with  nd  parade 
(I  want  to  do  him  full  justice)  but  with  an  evi- 
dently growing  disappointment  to  find  that  he 
had  fallen  among  savages.  I  am  sure  that  his 
conclusion  was  that  authors  of  popular  novels 
were  very  shallow,  ill-informed  people,  and  I  am 
sure  I  wholly  agreed  with  him.  Good  heavens, 
what  a  mind  the  man  had,  how  stored  with 
knowledge  !  how  admirably  equipped  !  Nothing 
that  he  had  ever  put  away  in  his  memory  seemed 
to  have  lost  its  colour  or  outline  ;  and  he  knew, 
moreover,  how  to  lay  his  hand  upon  everything. 
Indeed,  it  seemed  to  me  that  his  mind  was  like 
an  emporium,  with  everything  in  the  world 
arranged  on  shelves,  all  new  and  varnished  and 
bright,  and  that  he  knew  precisely  the  place  of 
everything.  I  became  the  prey  of  hopeless  de- 
pression ;  when  I  tried  to  join  in,  I  confused 
writers  and  dates  ;  he  set  me  right,  not  patronis- 
ingly  but  paternally.    "  Ah,  but  you  will  remem- 


56  The  Altar  Fire 

ber,"  he  said,  and,  "  Yes,  but  we  must  not  over- 
look the  fact  that" — adding,  with  admirable 
humility,  "  Of  course  these  are  small  points,  but 
it  is  my  business  to  know  them."  Now  I  find 
myself  wondering  why  I  disliked  knowledge, 
communicated  thus,  so  much  as  I  did.  It  may 
be  envy  and  jealous}^  it  may  be  humiliation  and 
despair.  But  I  do  not  honestly  think  that  it  is. 
I  am  quite  sure  I  do  not  want  to  possess  that  kind 
of  knowledge.  It  is  the  very  sharpness  and  clear- 
ness of  outline  about  it  all  that  I  dislike.  The 
things  that  he  knows  have  not  become  part  of 
his  mind  in  any  way  :  they  are  stored  away  there, 
like  walnuts  ;  and  I  feel  that  I  have  been  pelted 
with  walnuts,  deluged  and  buried  in  walnuts. 
The  things  which  my  visitor  knows  have  under- 
gone no  change,  they  have  not  been  fused  and 
blended  by  his  personality  ;  they  have  not  affect- 
ed his  mind,  nor  has  his  mind  affected  them.  I 
do  not  wish  to  despise  or  to  decry  his  knowledge ; 
as  a  lecturer,  he  must  be  invaluable  ;  but  he 
treats  literature  as  a  purveyor  might — it  has  not 
been  food  to  him,  but  material  and  stock-in- 
trade.  Some  of  the  poetry  we  talked  about — 
Elizabethan  lyrics — grow  in  my  mind  like  flowers 
in  a  copse  ;  in  his  mind  they  are  planted  in  rows, 


Value  of  Literature  57 

with  their  botanical  names  on  tickets.  The 
worst  of  it  is  that  I  do  not  even  feel  encouraged 
to  fill  up  my  gaps  of  knowledge,  or  to  master  the 
history  of  tendency.  I  feel  as  if  he  had  rather 
trampled  down  the  hyacinths  and  anemones  in 
my  wild  and  uncultivated  woodlands.  I  should 
like,  in  a  dim  way,  to  have  his  knowledge  as  well 
as  my  own  appreciation,  but  I  would  not  ex- 
change my  knowledge  for  his.  The  value  of  a 
lyric  or  a  beautiful  sentence,  for  me,  is  its  melody, 
its  charm,  its  mysterious  thrill ;  and  there  are 
many  books  and  poems,  which  I  know  to  be 
excellent  of  their  kind,  but  which  have  no  mean- 
ing or  message  for  me.  He  seems  to  think  that 
it  is  important  to  have  complete  texts  of  old 
authors,  and  I  do  not  think  that  he  makes  much 
distinction  between  first-rate  and  second-rate 
work.  In  fact,  I  think  that  his  view  of  literature 
is  the  sociological  view,  and  he  seems  to  care 
more  about  tendencies  and  influences  than  about 
the  beauty  and  appeal  of  literature.  I  do  not  go 
so  far  as  to  say  or  to  think  that  literature  cannot 
be  treated  scientifically  ;  but  I  feel  as  I  feel  about 
the  doctor  in  Balzac,  I  think,  who,  when  his  wife 
cried  upon  his  shoulder,  said,  *'  Hold,  I  have 
analysed  tears,"  adding  that  they  contained  so 


58  The  Altar  Fire 

much  chlorate  of  sodium  and  so  much  mucus. 
The  truth  is  that  he  is  a  philosopher,  and  that  I 
am  an  individualist ;  but  it  leaves  me  with  an 
intense  desire  to  be  left  alone  in  my  woodland, 
or,  at  all  events,  not  to  walk  there  with  a  ruthless 
botanist! 

November  29,  1888. 
I  have  heard  this  morning  of  the  suicide  of  an 
old  friend.  Is  it  strange  to  say  that  I  have  heard 
the  news  with  an  unfeigned  relief,  even  gladness  ? 
He  was  formerly  a  charming  and  brilliant  crea- 
ture, full  of  enthusiasm  and  artistic  impulses, 
fitful,  wayward,  wilful.  Somehow  he  missed  his 
footing  ;  he  fell  into  disreputable  courses  ;  he  did 
nothing,  but  drifted  about,  planning  many  things, 
executing  nothing.  The  last  time  I  saw  him  was 
exquisitely  painful  ;  we  met  by  appointment,  and 
I  could  see  that  he  had  tried  to  screw  himself  up 
for  the  interview  by  stimulants.  The  ghastly 
feigning  of  cheerfulness,  the  bloated  face,  the 
trembling  hands,  told  the  sad  tale.  And  now 
that  it  is  all  over,  the  shame  and  the  decay,  the 
horror  of  his  having  died  by  his  own  act  is  a 
purely  conventional  one.  One  talks  pompously 
about  the  selfishness  of  it.    but  it  is  one  of  the 


Suicide  59 

most  unselfish  things  poor  Dick  has  ever  done ; 
he  was  a  burden  and  a  misery  to  all  those  who 
cared  for  him.  Recovery  was,  I  sincerely  be- 
lieve, impossible.  His  was  a  fine,  uplifted,  even 
noble  spirit  in  youth,  but  there  were  terrible 
hereditary  influences  at  work,  and  I  cannot  hon- 
estly say  that  I  think  he  was  wholly  responsible 
for  his  sins.  If  I  could  think  that  this  act  was 
done  reasonably,  in  a  solemn  and  recollected 
spirit,  and  was  not  a  mere  frightened  scurrying 
out  of  life,  I  should  be,  I  believe,  wholly  glad.  I 
do  not  see  that  any  one  had  anything  to  gain  by 
his  continuing  to  live  ;  and  if  reason  is  given  us 
to  use,  to  guide  our  actions  by,  it  seems  to  me 
that  we  do  right  to  obey  it.  Suicide  may,  of 
course,  be  a  selfish  and  a  cowardly  thing,  but 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation  is  so  strong  that 
a  man  must  always  manifest  a  certain  courage  in 
making  such  a  decision.  The  sacrifice  of  one's 
own  life  is  not  necessarily  and  absolutely  an 
immoral  thing,  because  it  is  always  held  to  be 
justified  if  one's  motive  is  to  save  another.  It  is 
purely,  I  believe,  a  question  of  motive  ;  whatever 
poor  Dick's  motives  were,  it  was  certainly  the 
kindest  and  bravest  thing  that  he  could  do;  and 
I  look  upon  his  life  as  having  been  as  nattually 


6o  The  Altar  Fire 

ended  as  if  he  had  died  of  disease  or  by  an  acci- 
dent. There  is  not  a  single  one  of  his  friends 
who  would  not  have  been  thankful  if  he  had  died 
in  the  course  of  nature;  and  I  for  one  am  even 
more  thankful  as  it  is,  because  it  seems  to  me 
that  his  act  testifies  to  some  tenderness,  some 
consideration  for  others,  as  well  as  to  a  degree  of 
resolution  with  which  I  had  not  credited  him. 

Of  course  such  a  thing  deepens  the  mystery  of 
the  world;  but  such  an  act  as  this  is  not  to  me 
half  as  mysterious  as  the  action  of  an  omnipotent 
Power  which  allowed  so  bright  and  gracious  a 
creature  as  Dick  was  long  ago  to  drift  into  ugly, 
sordid,  and  irreparable  misery.  Yet  it  seems  to 
me  now  that  Dick  has  at  last  trusted  God  com- 
pletely, made  the  last  surrender,  and  put  his 
miserable  case  in  the  Father's  hands. 

December  2,  1888. 

As  I  came  home  to-night,  moving  slowly  west- 
ward along  deserted  roads,  among  wide  and  soli- 
tary fields,  in  the  frosty  twilight,  I  passed  a  great 
pale  fallow,  in  the  far  corner  of  which,  beside  a 
willow-shaded  stream,  a  great  heap  of  weeds  was 
burning,  tended  by  a  single  lonely  figure  raking 
in  the  smouldering  pile.  A  dense  column  of  thick 


A  Winter  Sunset  6i 

smoke  came  volleying  from  the  heap,  that  went 
softly  and  silently  up  into  the  orange-tinted  sky  ; 
some  forty  feet  higher  the  smoke  was  caught  by 
a  moving  current  of  air ;  much  of  it  ascended 
higher  still,  but  the  thin  streak  of  moving  wind 
caught  and  drew  out  upon  itself  a  long  weft  of 
aerial  vapour,  that  showed  a  delicate  blue  against 
the  rose-flushed  west.  The  long  lines  of  leafless 
trees,  the  faint  outlines  of  the  low,  distant  hills 
upon  the  horizon  seemed  wrapped  in  meditative 
silence,  dreaming  wistfully,  as  the  earth  turned 
her  broad  shoulder  to  the  night,  and  as  the 
forlorn  and  chilly  sunset  faded  by  soft  degrees. 
As  the  day  thus  died,  the  frost  made  itself  felt, 
touching  the  hedgerows  with  rime,  and  crisping 
the  damp  road  beneath  my  feet.  The  end  drew 
on  with  a  mournful  solemnity  :  but  the  death  of 
the  light  seemed  a  perfectly  nattual  and  beautiful 
thing,  not  an  event  to  be  grieved  over  or  regretted, 
but  all  part  of  a  sweet  and  grave  progress,  in 
which  silence  and  darkness  seemed,  not  an  in- 
terruption to  the  eager  life  of  the  world,  but  a 
happy  suspension  of  activity  and  life.  I  was 
haunted,  as  I  often  am  at  sunset,  by  a  sense  that 
the  dying  light  was  trying  to  show  me  some  august 
secret,    some   gracious    mystery,    which    would 


62  The  Altar  Fire 

silence  and  sustain  the  soul  could  it  but  capture 
it.  Some  great  and  wonderful  presence  seemed  to 
hold  up  a  hand,  with  a  gesture  half  of  invitation, 
half  of  compassion  for  my  blindness  Down  there, 
beyond  the  lines  of  motionless  trees,  where  the 
water  gleamed  golden  in  the  reaches  of  the 
stream,  the  secret  brooded,  withdrawing  itself 
resistlessly  into  the  glowing  west.  A  wistful 
yearning  filled  my  soul  to  enter  into  that  incom- 
municable peace.  Yet  if  one  could  take  the  wings 
of  the  morning,  and  follow  that  flying  zone  of 
light,  as  swiftly  as  the  air,  one  could  pursue  the 
same  sunset  all  the  world  over,  and  see  the  fiery 
face  of  the  sun  ever  sinking  to  his  setting,  over 
the  broad  furrows  of  moving  seas,  over  tangled 
tropic  forests,  out  to  the  shapeless  wintry  land  of 
the  south.  Day  by  day  has  the  same  pageant 
enacted  itself,  for  who  can  tell  what  millions  of 
years.  And  in  that  vast  perspective  of  weltering 
aeons  has  come  the  day  when  God  has  set  me 
here,  a  tiny  sentient  point,  conscious,  in  a  sense,  of 
it  all,  and  conscious  too  that,  long  after  I  sleep  in 
the  dust,  the  same  strange  and  beautiful  thing 
will  be  displayed  age  after  age.  And  yet  it  is  all 
outside  of  me,  all  without.  I  am  a  part  of  it,  yet 
with  no  sense  of  my  unity  with  it.      That  is  the 


The  Dying  Day  63 

marvellous  and  bewildering  thing,  that  each  tiny- 
being  like  myself  has  the  same  sense  of  isolation, 
of  distinctness,  of  the  perfectly  rounded  life,  com- 
plete faculties,  independent  existence.  Another 
day  is  done,  and  leaves  me  as  bewildered,  as 
ignorant  as  ever,  as  aware  of  my  small  limitations, 
as  lonely  and  uncomforted. 

Who  shall  show  me  why  I  love,  with  this  deep 
and  thirsty  intensity,  the  array  of  gold  and  silver 
light,  these  mist-hung  fields  with  their  soft  tints, 
the  glow  that  flies  and  fades,  the  cold  veils  of 
frosty  vapour  ?  Thousands  of  men  and  women 
have  seen  the  sunset  pass,  loving  it  even  as  I  love 
it.  They  have  gone  into  the  silence  as  I  too  shall 
go,  and  no  hint  comes  back  as  to  whether  they 
understand  and  are  satisfied. 

And  now  I  turn  in  at  the  well-known  gate,  and 
see  the  dark  gables  of  my  house,  with  the  high 
elms  of  the  grove  outlined  against  the  pale  sky. 
The  cheerful  windows  sparkle  with  warmth  and 
light,  welcoming  me,  fresh  from  the  chilly  air,  out 
of  the  homeless  fields.  With  such  array  of  cheer- 
ful usages  I  beguile  my  wondering  heart,  and 
chase  away  the  wild  insistent  thoughts,  the  deep 
yearnings  that  thrill  me.  Thus  am  I  bidden  to 
desire  and  to  be  unsatisfied,  to  rest  and  marvel 


64  The  Altar  Fire 

not,  to  stay,  on  this  unsubstantial  show  of  peace 
and  security,  the  aching  and  wondering  will. 

December  \,  1888. 
Writing,  like  music,  ought  to  have  two  dimen- 
sions— a  horizontal  movement  of  melody,  a  per- 
pendicular depth  of  tone.  A  person  unskilled  in 
music  can  only  recognise  a  single  horizontal 
movement,  an  air.  One  who  is  a  little  more 
skilled  can  recognise  the  composition  of  a  chord. 
A  real  musician  can  read  a  score  horizontally, 
with  all  its  contrasting  and  combining  melodies. 
Sometimes  one  gets,  in  writing,  a  piece  of  hori- 
zontal structure,  a  firm  and  majestic  melody,  with 
but  little  harmony.  Such  are  the  great  spare, 
strong  stories  of  the  old  world.  Modern  writing 
tends  to  lay  much  more  emphasis  upon  depth  of 
colour,  and  the  danger  there  is  that  such  writing 
may  become  a  mere  structureless  modulation. 
The  perfect  combination  is  to  get  firm  structure, 
sparingly  and  economically  enriched  by  colour, 
but  colour  always  subordinated  to  structure. 
When  I  was  young  I  undervalued  structure  and 
overvalued  colour ;  but  it  was  a  good  training  in 
a  way,  because  I  learned  to  appreciate  the  vital 
necessity  of  structure,  and  I  learned  the  command 


Structure  and  Colour  65 

of  harmony.  What  is  it  that  gives  structure  ?  It 
is  firm  and  clear  intellectual  conception,  the  grasp 
of  form  and  proportion  ;  while  colour  is  given  by- 
depth  and  richness  of  personality,  by  power  of 
perception,  and  still  more  by  the  power  of  fusing 
perception  with  personality.  The  important  thing 
here  is  that  the  thing  perceived  and  felt  should 
not  simply  be  registered  and  pigeon-holed,  but 
that  it  should  become  a  cell  of  the  writer's  soul, 
respond  to  his  pulse,  be  animated  by  his  vital 
forces. 

Now,  in  my  present  state,  I  have  lost  my  hold 
on  melody  in  some  way  or  other ;  my  creative 
intellectual  power  has  struck  work  ;  and  when  I 
try  to  exercise  it,  I  can  only  produce  vague  text- 
ures of  modulated  thoughts — things  melodious  in 
themselves,  but  inefifective  because  they  are  iso- 
lated effects,  instead  of  effects  emphasising  points, 
crises,  climaxes.  I  have  strained  some  mental 
muscle,  I  suppose ;  but  the  unhappy  part  of  the 
situation  is  that  I  have  not  lost  the  desire  to 
use  it. 

It  would  be  a  piece  of  good  fortune  for  me  now 

if  I  could  fall  in  with  some  vigorous  mind  who 

could  give  me  a  lead,  indicate  a  subject.     But  then 

the  work  that  resulted  would  miss  unity,  I  think. 

5 


66  The  Altar  Fire 

What  I  ought  to  be  content  to  do  is  to  garner 
more  impressions ;  but  I  seem  to  be  surfeited  of 
impressions. 

December  lo,  1888. 

To-day  I  stumbled  upon  one  of  my  old  child- 
ish books — Grimm's  Household  Stories,  I  am 
ashamed  to  say  how  long  I  read  it.  These  old 
tales,  which  I  used  to  read  as  transcripts  of  mar- 
vellous and  ancient  facts,  have,  many  of  them, 
gained  for  me,  through  experience  of  life,  a 
beautiful  and  symbolical  value  ;  one  in  particu- 
lar, the  tale  of  Karl  Katz. 

Karl  used  to  feed  his  goats  in  the  ruins  of  an 
old  castle,  high  up  above  the  stream.  Day  after 
day  one  of  his  herd  used  to  disappear,  coming 
back  in  the  evening  to  join  the  homeward  pro- 
cession, very  fat  and  well-liking.  So  Karl  set 
himself  to  watch,  and  saw  that  the  goat  slipped 
in  at  a  hole  in  the  masonry.  He  enlarged  the 
hole,  and  presently  was  able  to  creep  into  a  dark 
passage.  He  made  his  way  along,  and  soon 
heard  a  sound  like  a  falling  hailstorm.  He 
groped  his  way  thither,  and  found  the  goat,  in 
the  dim  light,  feeding  on  grains  of  corn  which 
came  splashing  down  from  above.     He  looked 


Karl  Katz  67 

and  listened,  and,  from  the  sounds  of  stamping 
and  neighing  overhead,  he  became  aware  that  the 
grain  was  falling  through  the  chinks  of  a  paved 
floor  from  a  stable  inside  the  hill.  I  forget  at 
this  moment  what  happened  next — the  story  is 
rich  in  inconsequent  details— but  Karl  shortly- 
heard  a  sound  like  thunder,  which  he  discerned 
at  last  to  be  persons  laughing  and  shouting  and 
running  in  the  vaulted  passages.  He  stole  on, 
and  found,  in  an  open,  grassy  place,  great  merry 
men  playing  at  bowls.  He  was  welcomed  and  set 
down  in  a  chair,  though  he  could  not  even  lift 
one  of  the  bowls  when  invited  to  join  in  the 
game.  A  dwarf  brought  him  wine  in  a  cup, 
which  he  drank,  and  presently  he  fell  asleep. 

When  he  woke,  all  was  silent  and  still;  he 
made  his  way  back ;  the  goats  were  gone,  and  it 
was  the  early  morning,  all  misty  and  dewy 
among  the  ruins,  when  he  squeezed  out  of  the 
hole. 

He  felt  strangely  haggard  and  tired,  and 
reached  the  village  only  to  find  that  seventy 
years  had  elapsed,  and  that  he  was  an  old  and 
forgotten  man,  with  no  place  for  him.  He  had  lost 
his  home,  and  though  there  were  one  or  two  old 
grandfathers,  spent  and  dying,  who  remembered 


68  The  Altar  Fire 

the  day  when  he  was  lost,  and  the  search  made 
for  him,  yet  now  there  was  no  locm  for  the  old 
man.  The  gap  had  filled  up,  life  had  flowed  on. 
They  had  grieved  for  him,  but  the}^  did  not  want 
him  back.  He  disturbed  their  arrangements ;  he 
was  another  useless  mouth  to  feed. 

The  pretty  old  story  is  full  of  parables,  sad  and 
sweet.  But  the  kernel  of  the  tale  is  a  warning  to 
all  who,  for  any  wilfulness  or  curiosity,  however 
romantic  or  alluring  the  quest,  forfeit  their  place 
for  an  instant  in  the  world.  You  cannot  return. 
I^ife  accommodates  itself  to  its  losses,  and  how- 
ever vsincerely  a  man  may  be  lamented,  yet  if  he 
returns,  if  he  tries  to  claim  his  place,  he  is  in  the 
way,  de  trap.     No  one  has  need  of  him. 

An  artist  has  most  need  of  this  warning,  be- 
cause he  of  all  men  is  tempted  to  enter  the  dark 
place  in  the  hill,  to  see  wonderful  things  and  to 
drink  the  oblivious  wine.  Let  him  rather  keep 
his  hold  on  the  world,  at  whatever  sacrifice.  Be- 
cause by  the  time  that  he  has  explored  the  home 
of  the  merry  giants,  and  dreamed  his  dream,  the 
world  to  which  he  tries  to  tell  the  vision  will 
heed  it  not,  but  treat  it  as  a  fanciful  tale. 

All  depends  on  the  artist  being  in  league  with 
his  day  ;  if  he  is  born  too  early  or  too  late,  he  has 


In  League  with  One's  Day     69 

no  hold  on  the  world,  no  message  for  it.  Either 
he  is  a  voice  out  of  the  past,  an  echo  of  old  joys 
piping  a  forgotten  message,  or  he  is  fanciful, 
unreal,  visionary,  if  he  sees  and  tries  to  utter 
what  shall  be.  By  the  time  that  events  confirm 
his  foresight,  the  vitality  of  his  prophecy  is  gone, 
and  he  is  only  looked  at  with  a  curious  admira- 
tion, as  one  that  had  a  certain  clearness  of  vision, 
but  no  more ;  he  is  called  into  court  by  the 
historian  of  tendency,  but  he  has  had  no  hold  on 
living  men. 

One  sees  men  of  great  artistic  gifts  who  suffer 
from  each  of  these  disadvantages.  One  sees  poets, 
born  in  a  prosaic  age,  who  would  have  won  high 
fame  if  they  had  been  born  in  an  age  of  poets. 
And  one  sees,  too,  men  who  seem  to  struggle 
with  big,  unintelligible  thoughts,  thoughts  which 
do  not  seem  to  fit  on  to  anything  existing.  The 
happy  artist  is  the  man  who  touches  the  note 
which  awakens  a  responsive  echo  in  many 
hearts ;  the  man  who  instinctively  uses  the  me- 
dium of  the  time,  who  neither  regrets  the  old 
nor  portends  the  new. 

Karl  Katz  must  content  himself,  if  he  can  find 
a  corner  and  a  crust,  with  the  memory  of  the  day 
when  the  sun  lay  hot  among  the  ruins,  with  the 


^o  The  Altar  Fire 

thouglit  of  the  pleasant  coolness  of  the  vault,  the 
leaping  shower  of  corn,  the  thunder  of  the  im- 
prisoned feet,  the  heroic  players,  the  heady  wine. 
That  must  be  enough  for  him.  He  has  had  a 
taste,  let  him  remember,  of  marvels  hidden 
from  common  eyes  and  ears.  I^et  it  be  for  him  to 
muse  in  the  sun,  and  to  be  grateful  for  the  space 
of  recollection  given  him.  If  he  had  lived  the 
life  of  the  world,  he  would  but  have  had  a  trea- 
sure of  simple  memories,  much  that  was  sordid, 
much  that  was  sad. 

But  now  he  has  his  own  dreams,  and  he  must 
pay  the  price  in  heaviness  and  dreariness! 

December  14,  1888. 
The  danger  of  art  as  an  occupation  is  that  one 
uses  life,  looks  at  life,  as  so  much  material  for 
one's  art.  I^ife  becomes  a  province  of  art,  instead 
of  art  being  a  province  of  life.  That  is  all  a  sad 
mistake,  perhaps  an  irreparable  mistake !  I 
walked  to-day  on  the  crisp  frozen  snow,  down  the 
valley,  by  field-paths,  among  leafless  copses  and 
wood-ends.  The  stream  ran  dark  and  cold,  be- 
tween its  brambly  banks ;  the  snow  lay  pure  and 
smooth  on  the  high-sloping  fields.  It  made 
a  heart  of  whiteness  in  the  covert,  the  trees  all 


Beauty  of  the  Seasons  71 

delicately  outlined,  the  hazels  weaving  an  intricate 
pattern.  All  perfectly  and  exquisitely  beautiful. 
Sight  after  sight  of  subtle  and  mysterious  beauty, 
vignette  after  vignette,  picture  after  picture.  If  I 
could  but  sing  it,  or  say  it,  depict  or  record  it,  I 
thought  to  myself !  Yet  I  could  not  analyse  what 
the  desire  was.  I  do  not  think  I  wished  to  inter- 
pret the  sight  to  others,  or  even  to  capture  it  for 
myself.  No  matter  at  what  season  of  the  year  I 
pass  through  the  valley,  it  is  always  filled  from 
end  to  end  with  beauty,  ever  changing,  perishing, 
ever  renewing  itself.  In  spring,  the  copse  is  full 
of  tender  points  of  green,  uncrumpling  and  uncurl- 
ing. The  hyacinths  make  a  carpet  of  steely  blue, 
the  anemones  weave  their  starred  tapestry.  In 
the  summer,  the  grove  hides  its  secret,  dense  with 
leaf,  the  heavy-seeded  grass  rises  in  the  field,  the 
tall  flowering  plants  make  airy  mounds  of  colour  ; 
in  autumn,  the  woods  blaze  with  orange  and  gold, 
the  air  is  heavy  with  the  scent  of  the  dying  leaf. 
In  winter,  the  eye  dwells  with  delight  upon  the 
spare  low  tints  ;  and  when  the  snow  falls  and  lies, 
as  it  does  to-day,  the  whole  scene  has  a  still  and 
mournful  beauty,  a  pure  economy  of  contrasted 
light  and  gloom.  Yet  the  trained  perception  of 
the  artist  does  not  dwell  upon  the  thought  of  the 


72  The  Altar  Fire 

place  as  upon  a  perpetual  feast  of  beauty  and 
delight.  Rather,  it  shames  me  to  reflect,  one 
dwells  upon  it  as  a  quarry  of  effects,  where  one 
can  find  and  detach  the  note  of  background,  the 
sweet  symbol  that  will  lend  point  and  significance 
to  the  scene  that  one  is  labouring  at.  Instead  of 
being  content  to  gaze,  to  listen,  to  drink  in,  one 
thinks  only  what  one  can  carry  away  and  make 
one's  own.  If  one's  art  were  purely  altruistic,  if 
one's  aim  were  to  emphasise  some  sweet  aspect 
of  nature  which  the  careless  might  otherwise  over- 
look or  despise  ;  or  even  if  the  sight  haunted  one 
like  a  passion,  and  fed  the  heart  with  hope  and 
love,  it  would  be  well.  But  does  one  in  reality 
feel  either  of  these  purposes  ?  Speaking  candidly, 
I  do  not.  I  care  very  little  for  my  message  to 
the  world.  It  is  true  that  I  have  a  deep  and 
tender  love  for  the  gracious  things  of  earth  ;  but 
I  cannot  be  content  with  that.  One  thinks  of 
Wordsworth,  rapt  in  contemplation,  sitting  silent 
for  a  whole  morning,  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  pool 
of  the  moorland  stream,  or  the  precipice  with  the 
climbing  ashes.  It  was  like  a  religion  to  him,  a 
communion  with  something  holy  and  august 
which  in  that  moment  drew  near  to  his  soul. 
But  with  me  it  is  different.     To  me  the  passion  is 


The  Artist's  Desire  73 

to  express  it,  to  embalm  it,  in  phrase  or  word,  not 
for  my  pride  in  any  art,  not  for  any  desire  to  give 
the  treasure  to  others,  but  simply,  so  it  seems,  in 
obedience  to  a  tyrannous  instinct  to  lend  the 
thought,  the  sight,  another  shape.  I  despair  of 
defining  the  feeling.  It  is  partly  a  desire  to  arrest 
the  fleeting  moment,  to  give  it  permanence  in  the 
ruinous  lapse  of  things,  the  same  feeling  that  made 
old  Herrick  say  to  the  daffodils,  **We  weep  to  see 
you  haste  away  so  soon."  Partly  the  joy  of  the 
craftsman  in  making  something  that  shall  please 
the  eye  and  ear.  It  is  not  the  desire  to  create,  as 
some  say,  but  to  record.  For  when  one  writes  an 
impassioned  scene,  it  seems  no  more  an  act  of 
creation  than  one  feels  about  one's  dreams.  The 
wonder  of  dreams  is  that  one  does  not  make 
them  ;  they  come  upon  one  with  all  the  pleasure 
of  surprise  and  experience.  They  are  there  ;  and 
so,  when  one  indulges  imagination,  one  does  not 
make,  one  merely  tells  the  dream.  It  is  this  that 
makes  art  so  strange  and  sad  an  occupation,  that 
one  lives  in  a  beautiful  world,  which  does  not 
seem  to  be  of  one's  own  designing,  but  from  which 
one  is  awakened,  in  terror  and  disgust,  by  bodily 
pain,  discomfort,  anxiety,  loss.  Yet  it  seems 
useless  to  say  that  life  is  real  and  imagination 


74  The  Altar  Fire 

unreal.  They  are  both  there,  both  real.  The 
danger  is  to  use  life  to  feed  the  imagination,  not 
to  use  imagination  to  feed  life.  In  these  sad 
weeks  I  have  been  like  a  sleeper  awakened.  The 
world  of  imagination,  in  which  I  have  lived  and 
moved,  has  crumbled  into  pieces  over  my  head  ; 
the  wind  and  rain  beat  through  the  flimsy  dwell- 
ing, and  I  must  rise  and  go.  I  have  sported 
with  life  as  though  it  were  a  pretty  plaything  ; 
and  I  find  it  turns  upon  me  like  a  wild  beast, 
gaunt,  hungry,  and  angry.  I  am  terrified  by  its  evil 
motions,  I  sicken  at  its  odour.  That  is  the  deep 
mystery  and  horror  of  life,  that  one  yields  un- 
erringly to  blind  and  imperious  instincts,  not 
knowing  which  may  lead  us  into  green  and  fertile 
pastures  of  hope  and  happy  labour,  and  which 
may  draw  us  into  thorny  wildernesses.  The  old 
fables  are  true,  that  one  must  not  trust  the  smiling 
presences,  the  beguiling  words.  Yet  how  is  one 
to  know  which  of  the  forms  that  beckon  us  we 
may  trust.  Must  we  learn  the  lesson  by  sad 
betrayals,  by  dark  catastrophes  ?  I  have  wandered, 
it  seems,  along  a  flowery  path — and  yet  I  have 
not  gathered  the  poisonous  herbs  of  sin  ;  I  have 
loved  innocence  and  goodness  ;  but  for  all  that 
I  have  followed  phantoms,  and  now  that  it  is  too 


The  Artistic  Criterion  75 

late  to  retrace  my  steps,  I  find  that  I  have  been 

betrayed.     I  feel 

*'  As  some  bold  seer  in  a  trance 
Seeing  all  his  own  mischance." 

Well,  at  least  one  may  still  be  bold  ! 

December  22,  l888. 

Perhaps  my  trial  comes  to  me  that  it  may  test 
my  faith  in  art ;  perhaps  to  show  me  that  the 
artist's  creed  is  a  false  and  shallow  one  after  all. 
What  is  it  that  we  artists  do  ?  In  a  happy  hour  I 
should  have  said  glibly  that  we  discern  and  in- 
terpret beauty.  But  now  it  seems  to  me  that  no 
man  can  ever  live  upon  beauty.  I  think  I  have 
gone  wrong  in  busying  myself  so  ardently  in  try- 
ing to  discern  the  quality  of  beauty  in  all  things. 
I  seem  to  have  submitted  everything, — virtue, 
honour,  life  itself, — to  that  test.  I  appear  to  my- 
self like  an  artist  who  has  devoted  himself  en- 
tirely to  the  appreciation  of  colour,  who  is 
suddenly  struck  colour-blind  ;  he  sees  the  forms 
of  things  as  clearly  as  ever,  but  they  are  dreary 
and  meaningless.  I  seem  to  have  tried  every- 
thing, even  conduct,  by  an  artistic  standard,  and 
the  quality  which  I  have  devoted  myself  to  dis- 
cerning has  passed  suddenly  out  of  life.     And  my 


76  The  Altar  Fire 

mistake  has  been  all  the  more  grievous,  because 
I  have  always  believed  that  it  was  life  of  which  I 
was  in  search.  There  are  three  great  writers — 
two  of  them  artists  as  well — whose  personality- 
has  always  interested  me  profoundly — Ruskin, 
Carlyle,  Rossetti.  But  I  have  never  been  able 
wholly  to  admire  the  formal  and  deliberate  pro- 
ducts of  their  minds.  Ruskin  as  an  art-critic — 
how  profoundly  unfair,  prejudiced,  unjust  he  is  ! 
He  has  made  up  his  mind  about  the  merit  of  an 
artist ;  he  will  lay  down  a  principle  about  accur- 
acy in  art,  and  to  what  extent  imagination  may 
improve  upon  vision  ;  and  then  he  will  abuse 
Claude  for  modifying  a  scene,  in  the  same  breath, 
and  for  the  same  reasons,  with  which  he  will  praise 
Turner  for  exaggerating  one.  He  wdll  use  the 
same  stick  that  he  throws  for  one  dog  to  fetch,  to 
beat  another  dog  that  he  dislikes.  Of  course  he 
says  fine  and  suggestive  things  by  the  way,  and 
he  did  a  great  work  in  inspiring  people  to  look 
for  beauty,  though  he  misled  many  feeble  spirits 
into  substituting  one  convention  for  another.  I 
cannot  read  a  page  of  his  former  writings  without 
anger  and  disgust.  Yet  what  a  beautiful,  pa- 
thetic, noble  spirit  he  had  !  The  moment  he 
writes,   simply  and  tenderly,   from  his  own  har- 


Ruskin  and  Carlyle  77 

rowed  heart,  he  becomes  a  dear  and  honoured 
friend.  In  PrcBterita,  in  his  diaries  and  letters, 
in  his  familiar  and  unconsidered  utterances,  he 
is  perfectly  delightful,  conscious  of  his  own  way- 
wardness and  whimsicality  ;  but  when  he  lectures 
and  dictates,  he  is  like  a  man  blowing  wild  blasts 
upon  a  shrill  trumpet.  Then  Carlyle — his  big 
books,  his  great  tawdry,  smoky  pictures  of  scenes, 
his  loud  and  clumsy  moralisations,  his  perpetual 
thrusting  of  himself  into  the  foreground,  like 
some  obstreperous  showman  ;  he  wearies  and 
dizzies  my  brain  with  his  raucous  clamour,  his 
uncouth  convolutions.  I  saw  the  other  day  a 
little  Japanese  picture  of  a  boat  in  a  stormy  sea, 
the  waves  beating  over  it ;  three  warriors  in  the 
boat  lie  prostrate  and  rigid  with  terror  and  mis- 
ery. Above,  through  a  rent  in  the  clouds,  is 
visible  an  ugly  grotesque  figure,  with  a  demon- 
iacal leer  on  his  face,  beating  upon  a  number  of 
drums.  The  picture  is  entitled  "The  Thunder- 
God  beats  his  drums. "  Well,  Carlyle  seems  to 
me  like  that ;  he  has  no  pity  for  humanity,  he 
only  likes  to  add  to  its  terrors  and  its  bewilder- 
ment. He  preached  silence  and  seclusion  to  men 
of  activity,  energy  to  men  of  contemplation.  He 
was  furious,  whatever  humanity  did,  whether  it 


78  The  Altar  Fire 

slept  or  waked.  His  message  is  the  message  of 
the  booming  gale,  and  the  swollen  cataract.  Yet 
in  his  diaries  and  letters,  what  splendid  percep- 
tion, what  inimitable  humour,  what  rugged 
emotion !  I  declare  that  Carlyle's  thumb-nail 
portraits  of  people  and  scenes  are  some  of  the 
most  admirable  things  ever  set  down  on  paper.  I 
love  and  admire  the  old  furious,  disconsolate, 
selfish  fellow  with  all  my  heart  ;  though  he  was 
a  bad  husband,  he  was  a  true  friend,  for  all  his 
discordant  cries  and  groans.  Then  there  is  Ros- 
setti — a  man  who  wrote  a  few  incredibly  beauti- 
ful poems,  and  in  whom  one  seems  to  feel  the 
inner  fire  and  glow  of  art.  Yet  many  of  his  pic- 
tures are  to  me  little  but  voluptuous  and  wicked 
dreams  ;  and  his  later  sonnets  are  full  of  poison- 
ous fragrance — poetry  embroidered  and  scented, 
not  poetry  felt.  What  a  generous,  royal  prodigal 
nature  he  had,  till  he  sank  into  his  drugged  and 
indulgent  seclusion  !  Here  then  are  three  great 
souls.  Ruskin,  the  pure  lover  of  things  noble 
and  beautiful,  but  shadowed  by  a  prim  perversity, 
an  old-maidish  delicacy,  a  petulant  despair. 
Carlyle,  a  great,  rugged,  and  tumultuous  heart, 
brutalised  by  ill-health,  morbidity,  selfishness. 
Rossetti,  a  sort  of  day-star  in  art,   stepping  forth 


Meaning  of  Catastrophes        79 

like  an  angel,  to  fall  lower  than  lyUcifer.  What 
is  the  meaning  of  these  strange  catastrophes, 
these  noble  natures  so  infamously  hampered  ?  In 
the  three  cases,  it  seems  to  be  that  melancholy, 
brooding  over  a  world,  so  exquisitely  designed 
and  yet  so  unaccountably  marred,  drove  one  to 
madness,  one  to  gloom,  one  to  sensuality.  We 
believe  or  try  to  believe  that  God  is  pure  and 
loving  and  true,  and  that  His  Heart  is  with  all 
that  is  noble  and  hopeful  and  high.  Yet  the  more 
generous  the  character,  the  deeper  is  the  fall  !  Can 
such  things  be  meant  to  show  us  that  we  have  no 
concern  with  art  at  all ;  and  that  our  only  hope 
is  to  cling  to  bare,  austere,  simple,  uncomforted 
virtue  ?  Ought  we  to  try  to  think  of  art  only  as 
an  innocent  amusement  and  diversion  for  our 
leisure  hours?  As  a  quest  to  which  no  man 
may  vow  himself,  save  at  the  cost  of  walking  in 
a  vain  shadow  all  his  days  ?  Ought  we  to  steel 
our  hearts  against  the  temptation,  which  seems  to 
be  implanted  as  deep  as  anything  in  my  own 
nature — nay,  deeper — that  what  one  calls  ugliness 
and  bad  taste  is  of  the  nature  of  sin  ?  But  what 
then  is  the  meaning  of  the  tyrannous  instinct  to 
select  and  to  represent,  to  capture  beauty  ?  Ought 
it  to  be  enough  to  see  beauty  in  the  things  around 


8o  The  Altar  Fire    - 

us,  in  flowers  and  light,  to  hear  it  in  the  bird's 
song  and  the  falling  stream — to  perceive  it  thus 
gratefully  and  thankfully,  and  to  go  back  to  our 
simple  lives  ?  I  do  not  know  ;  it  is  all  a  great 
mystery  ;  it  is  so  hard  to  believe  that  God  should 
put  these  ardent,  delicious,  sweet,  and  solemn  in- 
stincts into  our  spirits,  simply  that  we  may  learn 
our  error  in  following  them.  And  yet  I  feel  with 
a  sad  certainty  to-day  that  I  have  somehow 
missed  the  way,  and  that  God  cannot  or  will  not 
help  me  to  find  it.  Are  we  then  bidden  and 
driven  to  wander?  Or  is  there  indeed  some 
deep  and  perfect  secret  of  peace  and  tranquillity, 
which  we  are  meant  to  find  ?  Does  it  perhaps  lie 
open  to  our  eyes — as  when  one  searches  a  table 
over  and  over  for  some  familiar  object,  which  all 
the  while  is  there  before  us,  plain  to  touch  or 
sight  ? 

January  2,,  1889. 
There  is  a  tiny  vignette  of  Blake's,  a  woodcut, 
I  think,  in  which  one  sees  a  ladder  set  up  to  the 
crescent  moon  from  a  bald  and  bare  comer  of 
the  globe.  There  are  two  figures  that  seem  to 
be  conversing  together ;  on  the  ladder  itself,  just 
setting  his  foot  to  the  lowest  rung,  is  the  figure 


-^CS-      OF  Tl-i       . 

UNiVERSiiY 

^"""^""^he  World's  Desire  8i 

of  a  man  who  is  beginning  to  climb  in  a  furious 
hurry.  ^^  I  want,  I  want,''  says  the  little  legend 
beneath.  The  execution  is  trivial  enough ;  it  is 
all  done,  and  not  very  well  done,  in  a  space  not 
much  bigger  than  a  postage-stamp — but  it  is  one 
of  the  many  cases  in  which  Blake,  by  a  minute 
symbol,  expressed  a  large  idea.  One  wonders  if 
he  knew  how  large  an  idea  it  was.  It  is  a  symbol 
for  me  of  all  the  vague,  eager,  intense  longing  of 
the  world,  the  desire  of  satisfaction,  of  peace,  of 
fulfilment,  of  perfection ;  the  power  that  makes 
people  passionately  religious,  that  makes  souls 
so  much  greater  and  stronger  than  they  appear 
to  themselves  to  be.  It  is  the  thought  that  makes 
us  at  moments  believe  intensely  and  urgently  in 
the  justice,  the  mercy,  the  perfect  love  of  God, 
even  at  moments  when  everything  round  us  ap- 
pears to  contradict  the  idea.  It  is  the  outcome  of 
that  strange  right  to  happiness  which  we  all  feel, 
the  instinct  that  makes  us  believe  of  pain  and  grief 
that  they  are  abnormal,  and  will  be,  must  be,  set 
right  and  explained  somewhere.  The  thought 
comes  to  me  most  poignantly  at  sunset,  when 
trees  and  chimneys  stand  up  dark  against  the 
fiery  glow,  and  when  the  further  landscape  lies 
smiling,  lapt  in  mist,  on  the  verge  of  dreams; 

6 


82  The  Altar  Fire 

that  moment  always  seems  to  speak  to  me  with  a 
personal  voice.  *' Yes,"  it  seems  to  say,  "  I  am 
here  and  everywhere — larger,  sweeter,  truer, 
more  gracious  than  anything  you  have  ever 
dreamed  of  or  hoped  for — but  the  time  to  know 
all  is  not  yet."  I  cannot  explain  the  feeling  or 
interpret  it;  but  it  has  sometimes  seemed  to  me, 
in  such  moments,  that  I  am,  in  very  truth,  not  a 
child  of  God,  but  a  part  of  Himself— separated 
from  Him  for  a  season,  imprisoned  for  some 
strange  and  beautiful  purpose,  in  the  chains  of 
matter,  remembering  faintly  and  obscurely  some- 
thing that  I  have  lost,  as  a  man  strives  to  recall  a 
beautiful  dream  that  has  visited  him.  It  is  then 
that  one  most  desires  to  be  strong  and  free,  to  be 
infinitely  patient  and  tender  and  loving,  to  be 
difierent.  And  then  one  comes  back  to  the  world 
with  a  sense  of  jar  and  shock,  to  broken  pur- 
poses, and  dull  resentments,  to  unkindly  thoughts, 
and  people  who  do  not  even  pretend  to  wish  one 
well.  I  have  been  trying  with  all  my  might  in 
these  desolate  weeks  to  be  brave  and  affectionate 
and  tender,  and  I  have  not  succeeded.  It  is  easy 
enough,  when  one  is  happily  occupied  for  a  part 
of  the  day,  but  when  one  is  restless,  dissatisfied, 
impatient,  inefiective,  it  is  a  constant  and  a  wear}' 


An  Unhappy  Mortal  83 

effort.  And  what  is  more,  I  dislike  sympathy.  I 
would  rather  bear  a  thing  in  solitude  and  silence. 
I  have  no  self-pity,  and  it  is  humiliating  and 
weakening  to  be  pitied.  Yet  of  course  Maud 
knows  that  I  am  unhappy;  and  the  wretched- 
ness of  it  is  that  it  has  introduced  a  strain  into 
our  relations  which  I  have  never  felt  before.  I 
sit  reading,  trying  to  pass  the  hours,  trying  to 
stifle  thought.  I  look  up  and  see  her  eyes  fixed 
on  me  full  of  compassion  and  love — and  I  do  not 
want  compassion.  Maud  knows  it,  divines  it 
all;  but  she  can  no  more  keep  her  compassion 
hidden  than  I  can  keep  my  unrest  hidden.  I 
have  grown  irritable,  suspicious,  hard  to  live 
with.  Yet  with  all  my  heart  and  soul  I  desire 
to  be  patient,  tolerant,  kindly,  sweet-tempered. 
FitzGerald  said  somewhere  that  ill-health  makes 
all  of  us  villains.  This  is  the  worst  of  it,  that 
for  all  my  efforts  I  get  weaker,  more  easily  vexed, 
more  discontented.  I  do  not  and  cannot  trace 
the  smallest  benefit  which  results  to  me  or  any 
one  else  firom  my  unhappiness.  The  shadow  of 
it  has  even  fallen  over  my  relations  with  the 
children,  who  are  angelically  good.  Maggie  with 
that  divine  instinct  which  women  possess— what 
a  perfectly  beautiful  thing  it  is ;— has  somehow 


84  The  Altar  Fire 

contrived  to  discern  that  things  are  amiss  with 
me,  and  I  can  perceive  that  she  tries  all  that  her 
little  heart  and  mind  can  devise  to  please,  soothe, 
interest  me.  But  I  do  not  want  to  be  ministered 
to,  exquisite  as  the  instinct  is  in  the  child  :  and 
all  the  time  I  am  as  far  off  my  object  as  ever.  I 
cannot  work,  I  cannot  think.  I  have  said  fine 
things  in  my  books  about  the  discipline  of  reluc- 
tant suffering  ;  and  now  my  feeling  is  that  I  could 
bear  any  other  kind  of  trial  better.  It  seems 
to  be  given  to  me  with  an  almost  demoniacal 
prescience  of  what  should  most  dishearten  me. 

*'  It  would  not  school  the  shuddering  will 
To  patience,  were  it  sweet  to  bear," 

says  an  old  poet ;  and  it  is  true,  I  have  no  doubt ; 
but,  good  God,  to  think  that  a  man,  so  richly 
dowered  as  I  am  with  every  conceivable  blessing, 
should  yet  have  so  small  a  reserve  of  faith  and 
patience  !  Kven  now  I  can  frame  epigrams  about 
it.  '  *  To  learn  to  be  content  not  to  be  content ' ' 
— that  is  the  secret — but  meanwhile  I  stumble 
in  dark  paths,  through  the  grove  nullo  pene- 
trabilis  astro,  where  men  have  wandered  be- 
fore now.  It  seems  fine  and  romantic  enough, 
when  one  thinks   of  another  soul    in  torment. 


A  Descent  into  Hell  85 

One  remembers  the  old  sage,  reading  quietly  at  a 
sunset  hour,  who  had  a  sudden  vision  of  the  fate 
that  should  befall  him.  His  book  falls  from  his 
hands,  he  sits  there,  a  beautiful  venerable  figure 
enough,  staring  heavily  into  the  void.  It  makes 
me  feel  that  I  shall  never  dare  to  draw  the 
picture  of  a  man  in  the  grip  of  suffering  again  ; 
I  have  had  so  little  of  it  in  my  life,  and  I  have 
drawn  it  with  a  luxurious  artistic  emotion.  I  re- 
member once  saying  of  a  friend  that  his  work  was 
light  and  trivial,  because  he  had  never  descended 
into  hell.  Now  that  I  have  myself  set  foot  there, 
I  feel  art  and  love,  and  life  itself,  shrivel  in  the  re- 
lentless chill — for  it  is  icy  cold  and  drearily  bright 
in  hell,  not  dark  and  fiery,  as  poets  have  sung  ! 
I  feel  that  I  could  wrestle  better  with  the  loss  of 
health,  of  wealth,  of  love,  for  there  would  be 
something  to  bear,  some  burden  to  lift.  Now 
there  is  nothing  to  bear,  except  a  blank  purpose- 
lessness  which  eats  the  heart  out  of  me.  I  am  in 
the  lowest  place,  in  the  darkness  and  the  deep. 

January  8,  1889. 
Snow  underfoot  this  morning;    and  a  brown 
blink  on  the  horizon  which  shows  that  more  is 
coming.     I  have  the  odd  feeling  that  I  have  never 


86  The  Altar  Fire 

really  seen  my  house  before,  the  snow  lights  it  all 
up  so  strangely,  tinting  the  ceilings  a  glowing 
white,  touching  up  high  lights  on  the  top  of 
picture-frames,  and  throwing  the  lower  part  of  the 
rooms  into  a  sort  of  pleasant  dusk. 

Maud  and  the  children  went  off  this  afternoon 
to  an  entertainment.  I  accompanied  them  to  the 
door ;  what  a  pretty  effect  the  snow  background 
gives  to  young  faces  ;  it  lends  a  pretty  morbidezza 
to  the  colouring,  a  sort  of  very  delicate  green 
tinge  to  the  paler  shades.  That  does  not  sound 
as  if  it  would  be  beautiful  in  a  human  face,  but 
it  is  ;  the  faces  look  like  the  child-angels  of  Botti- 
celli, and  the  pink  and  rose  flush  of  the  cheeks  is 
softly  enriched  and  subdued  ;  and  then  the  soft 
warmth  of  fair  and  curly  hair  is  delicious.  I  was 
happy  enough  with  them,  in  a  sort  of  surface 
happiness.  The  little  waves  at  the  top  of  the 
mind  broke  in  sunlight ;  but  down  below,  the 
cold  dark  water  sleeps  still  enough.  I  left  them, 
and  took  a  long  trudge  among  the  valleys.  Oh 
me  !  how  beautiful  it  all  was ;  the  snowy  fields, 
with  the  dark  copses  and  leafless  trees  among 
them ;  the  rich  clean  light  everywhere,  the 
world  seen  as  through  a  dusky  crystal.  Then 
the  sun  went  down  in  state,  and  the  orange  sky 


A  Wintry  World  ^7 

through  the  dark  tree-stems  brought  me  a  thrill 
of  that  strange  yearning  desire  for  something — I 
cannot  tell  what — that  seems  so  near  and  yet  so 
far  away.  Yet  I  was  sad  enough  too  ;  my  mind 
works  like  a  mill  with  no  com  togrind.  I  can 
devise  nothing,  think  of  nothing.  (^  There  beats  in 
my  head  a  verse  of  a  little  old  Latin  poem,  by  an 
unhappy  man  enough,  in  whose  sorrowful  soul 
the  delight  of  the  beautiful  moment  was  for  ever 
poisoned  by  the  thought  that  it  was  passing,  pass- 
ing ;  and  that  the  spirit,  whatever  joy  might  be  in 
store  for  it,  could  never  again  be  at  the  same 
sweet  point  of  its  course.  The  poem  is  about  a 
woodcock,  a  belated  bird  that  haunted  the  hang- 
ing thickets  of  his  Devonshire  home.  ^'Ah,  hap- 
less bird,'"  he  says,  ''for you  to-day  King  December 
is  stripping  these  oaks  ;  nor  any  hope  of  food  do  the 
hazel-thickets  affords  That  is  my  case.  \I  have 
lingered  too  late,  trusting  to  the  ease  and  prodi- 
gal wealth  of  the  summer,  and  now  the  woods 
stand  bare  about  me,  while  my  comrades  have 
taken  wing  for  the  South.  The  beady  eye,  the 
puffed  feathers  grow  sick  and  dulled  with  hunger. 
Why  cannot  I  rest  a  little  in  the  beauty  all  about 
me  ?  Take  it  home  to  my  shivering  soul  ?  Nay, 
I  will  not  complain,  even  to  myself. 


88  The  Altar  Fire 

I  came  back  at  sundown,  through  the  silent 
garden,  all  shrouded  and  muffled  with  snow.  The 
snow  lay  on  the  house,  outlining  the  cornices, 
cresting  the  roof-tiles,  crusted  sharply  on  the 
cupola,  whitening  the  tall  chimney-stacks.  The 
comfortable  smoke  went  up  into  the  still  air,  and 
the  firelight  darted  in  the  rooms.  What  a  sense 
of  beautiful  permanence,  sweet  hopefulness,  fire- 
side warmth  it  all  gave  ;  and  it  is  real  as  well. 
No  life  that  I  could  have  devised  is  so  rich 
in  love  and  tranquillity  as  mine ;  everything 
to  give  me  content,  except  the  contented  mind. 
Why  cannot  I  enter,  seat  myself  in  the  warm 
firelight,  open  a  book,  and  let  the  old  beautiful 
thoughts  flow  into  my  mind,  till  the  voices 
of  wife  and  children  return  to  gladden  me,  and 
I  listen  to  all  that  they  have  seen  and  done  ? 
Why  should  I  rather  sit,  like  a  disconsolate 
child  among  its  bricks,  feebly  and  sadly  plan- 
ning new  combinations  and  fantastic  designs  ? 
I  have  done  as  much  and  more  than  most 
of  my  contemporaries  ;  what  is  this  insensate 
hunger  of  the  spirit  that  urges  me  to  work  that 
I  cannot  do,  for  rewards  that  I  do  not  want? 
Why  cannot  I  be  content  to  dream  and  drowse 
a  little  ? 


Loss  of  Inspiration  89 

**  Rest,  then,  and  rest 
And  think  of  the  best, 
'Twixt  summer  and  spring, 
When  no  birds  sing." 

That  is  what  I  desire  to  do,  and  catinot.  It  is 
as  though  some  creeper  that  had  enfolded  and 
enringed  a  house  with  its  tendrils,  creeping 
under  window-ledges  and  across  mellow  brick- 
work, had  been  suddenly  cut  off  at  the  root,  and 
hung  faded  and  lustreless,  not  even  daring  to  be 
torn  away.  Yet  I  am  alive  and  well,  my  mind  is 
alert  and  vigorous,  I  have  no  cares  or  anxieties, 
except  that  my  heart  seems  hollow  at  the  core. 

January  12,  1889. 
I  have  had  a  very  bad  time  of  late.  It  seems 
futile  to  say  anything  about  it,  and  the  plain  man 
would  rub  his  eyes,  and  wonder  where  the  misery 
lay.  I  have  been  perfectly  well,  and  everything 
has  gone  smoothly  ;  but  I  cannot  write.  I  have 
begun  half-a-dozen  books.  I  have  searched  my 
notes  through  and  through.  I  have  sketched 
plots,  written  scenes.  I  cannot  go  on  with  any  of 
them.  I  have  torn  up  chapters  with  fierce  dis- 
gust, or  have  laid  them  quietly  aside.  There  is 
no  vitality  in  them.  If  I  read  them  aloud  to  any 
one,  he  would  wonder  what  was  wrong — they  are 


90  The  Altar  Fire 

as  well  written  as  my  other  books,  as  amusing,  as 
interesting.  But  it  is  all  without  energy  or  inven- 
tion, it  is  all  worse  than  my  best.  The  people 
are  puppets,  their  words  are  pumped  up  out  of  a 
stagnant  reservoir.  Everything  I  do  reminds  me 
of  something  I  have  done  before.  If  I  could 
bring  myself  to  finish  one  of  these  books,  I  could 
get  money  and  praise  enough.  Many  people 
would  not  know  the  difference.  But  the  real  and 
true  critic  would  see  through  them ;  he  would 
discern  that  I  had  lost  the  secret.  I  think  that 
perhaps  I  ought  to  be  content  to  work  dully  and 
faithfully  on,  to  finish  the  poor  dead  thing,  to 
compose  its  dead  limbs  decently,  to  lay  it  out. 
But  I  cannot  do  that,  though  it  might  be  a  moral 
discipline.  I  am  not  conscious  of  the  least  men- 
tal fatigue,  or  loss  of  power — quite  the  reverse.  I 
hunger  and  thirst  to  write,  but  I  have  no  inven- 
tion. 

The  worst  of  it  is  that  it  reveals  to  me  how  much 
the  whole  of  my  life  was  built  up  round  the  hours 
I  gave  to  writing.  I  used  to  read,  write  letters,  do 
business  in  the  morning,  holding  myself  back  from 
the  beloved  task,  not  thinking  over  it,  not  antici- 
pating the  pleasure,  yet  aware  that  some  secret 
germination  was   going  on  among  the  cells   of 


Adrift  91 

the  brain.  Then  came  the  afternoon,  the  walk 
or  ride,  and  then  at  last  after  tea  arrived  the 
blessed  hour.  The  chapter  was  all  ready  to  be 
written,  and  the  thing  flowed  equably  and  clearly 
from  the  pen.  The  passage  written,  I  would  turn 
to  some  previous  chapter,  which  had  been  type- 
written, smooth  out  the  creases,  enrich  the  dia- 
logue, retouch  the  descriptions,  omit,  correct, 
clarify.  Perhaps  in  the  evening  I  would  read  a 
passage  aloud,  if  we  were  alone,  and  how  often 
would  Maud  with  her  perfect  instinct,  lay  her 
finger  on  a  weak  place,  show  me  that  something 
was  abrupt  or  lengthy,  expose  an  unreal  emotion, 
or,  best  of  all,  generously  and  whole-heartedly 
approve.  It  seems  now,  looking  back  upon  it, 
that  it  was  all  impossibly  happy  and  delightful, 
too  good  to  be  true.  Yet  I  have  everything  that 
I  had,  except  my  unhappy  writing ;  and  the 
want  of  it  poisons  life.  I  no  longer  seem  to  lie 
pleasantly  in  ambush  for  pretty  traits  of  character, 
humorous  situations,  delicate  nuances  of  talk.  I 
look  blanklj^  at  garden,  field,  and  wood,  because 
I  cannot  draw  from  them  the  setting  that  I  want. 
Even  my  close  and  intimate  companionship  with 
Maud  seems  to  have  suffered,  for  I  was  like  a 
child,  bringing  the  little  wonders  that  it  finds  by 


92  The  Altar  Fire 

the  hedgerow  to  be  looked  at  by  a  loving  eye. 
Maud  is  angelically  tender,  kind,  sweet.  She 
tells  me  only  to  wait ;  she  draws  me  on  to  talk  ; 
she  surrounds  me  with  love  and  care.  And  in  the 
midst  of  it  all  I  sit,  in  dry  misery,  hating  myself 
for  my  feebleness  and  cowardice,  keeping  as  far  as 
possible  my  pain  to  myself,  brooding,  feverishly 
straining,  struggling  hopelessly  to  recover  the 
clue.  The  savour  has  gone  out  of  life ;  I  feel 
widowed,  frozen,  desolate.  How  often  have  I 
tranquilly  and  good-humouredly  contemplated 
the  time  when  I  need  write  no  more,  when  my 
work  should  be  done,  when  I  should  have  said  all 
I  had  to  say,  and  could  take  life  as  it  came,  so- 
berly and  wisely.  Now  that  the  end  has  come  of 
itself,  I  feel  like  a  hopeless  prisoner,  with  death 
the  only  escape  from  a  bitter  and  disconsolate 
solitude. 

Can  I  not  amuse  myself  with  books,  pictures, 
talk  ?  No,  because  it  is  all  a  purposeless  passing  of 
dreary  hours.  Before,  there  was  always  an  object 
ahead  of  me,  a  light  to  which  I  made  my  way  ; 
and  all  the  pleasant  incidents  of  life  were  things 
to  guide  me,  and  to  beguile  the  plodding  path. 
Now  I  am  adrift ;  I  need  go  neither  forwards  nor 
backwards ;  and  the  things  which  before  were 


My  Desire  93 

gentle  and  quiet  occupations  have  become  duties 
to  be  drearily  fulfilled. 

I  have  put  down  here  exactly  what  I  feel.  It 
is  not  cowardice  that  makes  me  do  it,  but  a  desire 
to  face  the  situation,  exactly  as  it  is.  Forsan  et 
hcec  olim  meminisse  jwvabii !  And  in  any  case 
nothing  can  be  done  by  blinking  the  truth.  I 
shall  need  all  my  courage  and  all  my  resolution 
to  meet  it,  and  I  shall  meet  it  as  manfully  as  I  can. 
Yet  the  thought  of  meeting  it  thus  has  no  inspira- 
tion in  it.  My  only  desire  is  that  the  frozen 
mind  may  melt  at  the  touch  of  some  genial  ray, 
and  that  the  buds  may  prick  and  unfold  upon  the 
shrunken  bough. 

January  15,  1889. 

One  of  the  miseries  of  my  present  situation  is 
that  it  is  all  so  intangible,  and  to  the  outsider  so 
incomprehensible.  There  is  no  particular  reason 
why  I  should  write.  I  do  not  need  the  money  ; 
I  believe  I  do  not  desire  fame.  Let  me  try  to  be 
perfectly  frank  about  this  ;  I  do  not  at  all  desire 
the  tangible  results  of  fame,  invitations  to  ban- 
quets, requests  to  deliver  lectures,  the  acquaint- 
ance of  notable  people,  laudatory  reviews.     I  like 


94  The  Altar  Fire 

a  quiet  life ;  I  do  not  want  monstrari  digito^  as 
Horace  says.  I  have  had  a  taste  of  all  of  these 
things,  and  they  do  not  amuse  me,  though  I  con- 
fess that  I  thought  they  would.  I  feel  in  this 
rather  as  Tennyson  felt — that  I  dislike  contemptu- 
ous criticism,  and  do  not  value  praise — except  the 
praise  of  a  very  few,  the  masters  of  the  craft. 
And  this  one  does  not  get,  because  the  great  men 
are  mostly  too  much  occupied  in  producing  their 
own  masterpieces  to  have  the  time  or  inclination 
to  appraise  others.  Yet  I  am  sure  there  is  a  vile 
fibre  of  ambition  lurking  in  me,  interwoven  with 
my  nature,  which  I  cannot  exactly  disentangle. 
I  very  earnestly  desire  to  do  good  and  fine  work, 
to  write  great  books.  If  I  genuinely  and  critic- 
ally approved  of  my  own  work,  I  could  go  on 
writing  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  it,  in  the  face  of 
universal  neglect.  But  one  may  take  it  for 
granted  that  unless  one  is  working  on  very  novel 
and  original  lines — and  I  am  not — the  good  qual- 
ities of  one's  work  are  not  likely  to  escape  atten- 
tion. The  reason  why  Keats,  and  Shelley,  and 
Tennyson,  and  Wordsworth  were  decried,  was 
because  their  work  was  so  unusual,  so  new,  that 
conventional  critics  could  not  understand  it.  But 
I  am  using  a  perfectly  familiar  medium,  and  there 


When  to  Stop  95 

is  a  large  and  acute  band  of  critics  who  are  look- 
ing out  for  interesting  work  in  the  region  of 
novels.  Besides  I  have  arrived  at  the  point  of 
having  a  vogue,  so  that  anything  I  write  would 
be  treated  with  a  certain  respect.  Where  my 
ambition  comes  in  is  in  the  desire  not  to  fall 
below  my  standard.  I  suppose  that  while  I  feel 
that  I  do  not  rate  the  judgment  of  the  ordinary 
critic  highly,  I  have  an  instinctive  sense  that  my 
work  is  worthy  of  his  admiration.  The  pain  I 
feel  is  the  sort  of  pain  that  an  athlete  feels  who 
has  established,  say,  a  record  in  high -jumping, 
and  finds  that  he  can  no  longer  hurl  his  stiffening 
legs  and  portly  frame  over  the  lath.  Well,  I  have 
always  held  strongly  that  men  ought  to  know 
when  to  stop.  There  is  nothing  more  melancholy 
and  contemptible  than  to  see  a  successful  man, 
who  has  brought  out  a  brood  of  fine  things,  sitting 
meekly  on  addled  eggs,  or,  still  worse,  squatting 
complacently  among  eggshells.  It  is  like  the  story 
of  the  old  tiresome  Breton  farmer  whose  wife  was 
so  annoyed  by  his  ineffective  fussiness,  that  she 
clapt  him  down  to  sit  on  a  clutch  of  stone  eggs 
for  the  rest  of  his  life.  How  often  have  I  thought 
how  deplorable  it  was  to  see  a  man  issuing  a  ser- 
ies of  books,  every  one  of  which  is  feebler  than  its 


96  The  Altar  Fire 

predecessor,  dishing  up  the  old  characters,  the 
stale  ideas,  the  used-up  backgrounds.  I  have 
always  hoped  that  some  one  would  be  kind  and 
brave  enough  to  tell  me  when  I  did  that.  But 
now  that  the  end  seems  to  have  come  to  me 
naturally  and  spontaneously,  I  cannot  accept  my 
defeat.  I  am  like  the  monkey  of  whom  Frank 
Buckland  wrote,  who  got  into  the  kettle  when 
the  water  was  lukewarm,  and  found  the  outer  air 
so  cold  whenever  he  attempted  to  leave  it,  that  he 
was  eventually  very  nearly  boiled  alive.  The  fact 
that  my  occupation  is  gone  leaves  life  hollow  to 
the  core.  Perhaps  a  wise  man  would  content 
himself  with  composing  some  placid  literary  es- 
says, selecting  some  lesser  figure  in  the  world  of 
letters,  collecting  gossip,  and  what  are  called 
"side-lights,"  about  him,  visiting  his  birthplace 
and  early  haunts,  criticising  his  writings.  That 
would  be  a  harmless  way  of  filling  the  time.  But 
any  one  who  has  ever  tried  creative  w^ork  gets 
filled  with  a  nauseating  disgust  for  making  books 
out  of  other  people's  writings,  and  constructing  a 
kind  of  resurrection -pie  out  of  the  shreds.  More- 
over I  know  nothing  except  literature ;  I  could 
only  write  a  literary  biography ;  and  it  has 
always  seemed  to  me  a  painful  irony  that  men 


The  Secret  of  Genius  97 

who  have  put  into  their  writings  what  other 
people  put  into  deeds  and  acts,  should  be  the 
very  people  whose  lives  are  sedulously  written 
and  rewritten,  generation  after  generation.  The 
instinct  is  natural  enough.  The  vivid  memories 
of  statesmen  and  generals  fade ;  but  as  long  as 
we  have  the  fascinating  and  adorable  reveries  of 
great  spirits,  we  are  consumed  with  a  desire  to 
reconstruct  their  surroundings,  that  we  may  learn 
where  they  found  their  inspiration.  A  great  poet, 
a  great  imaginative  writer,  so  glorifies  and  irradi- 
ates the  scene  in  which  his  mighty  thoughts 
came  to  him,  that  we  cannot  help  fancying  that 
the  secret  lies  in  crag  and  hill  and  lake,  rather 
than  in  the  mind  that  gathered  in  the  common 
joy.  I  have  a  passion  for  visiting  the  haunts  of 
genius,  but  rather  because  they  teach  me  that  in- 
spiration lies  everywhere,  if  we  can  but  perceive 
it,  than  because  I  hope  to  detect  where  the  par- 
ticular charm  lay.  And  so  I  am  driven  back  upon 
my  own  poor  imagination.  I  say  to  m5'self,  like 
Samson,  "  I  will  go  out  as  at  other  times  before, 
and  shake  myself,"  and  then  the  end  of  the  verse 
falls  on  me  like  a  shadow—"  and  he  wist  not 
that  the  I,ord  was  departed  from  him." 


98  The  Altar  Fire 

January  i8,  1889. 

Nothing  the  matter,  and  yet  everything  the 
matter !  I  plough  on  drearily  enough,  like  a  ves- 
sel forging  slowly  ahead  against  a  strong,  ugly, 
muddy  stream.  I  seem  to  gain  nothing,  neither 
hope,  patience,  nor  strength.  My  spirit  revolted 
at  first,  but  now  I  have  lost  the  heart  even  for 
that :  I  simply  bear  my  burden  and  wait.  One 
tends  to  think,  at  such  times,  that  no  one  has  ever 
passed  through  a  similar  experience  before  ;  and 
the  isolation  in  which  one  moves  is  the  hardest 
part  of  it  all.  Alone,  and  cut  off  even  from  God! 
If  one  felt  that  one  was  learning  something,  gain- 
ing power  or  courage,  one  could  bear  it  cheerfully; 
but  I  feel  rather  as  though  all  my  vitality  and 
moral  strength  was  being  pressed  and  drained 
from  me.  Yet  I  do  not  desire  death  and  silence. 
I  rather  crave  for  life  and  light. 

No,  I  am  not  describing  my  state  fairly.  At 
times  I  have  a  sense  that  something,  some  power, 
some  great  influence,  is  trying  to  communicate 
with  me,  to  deliver  me  some  message.  There  are 
many  hours  when  it  is  not  so,  when  my  nerveless 
brain  seems  losing  its  hold,  slipping  off  into  some 
dark  confusion  of  sense.  Yet  again  there  are 
other  moments,  when  sights  and  sounds  have  an 


Hypochondria  99 

overpowering  and  awful  significance ;  when  the 
gleams  of  some  tremendous  secret  seem  flashed  up- 
on my  mind,  at  the  sight  of  the  mist-hung  valley 
with  its  leafless  woods  and  level  water-meadows  ; 
the  flaring  pomp  of  sunset  hung  low  in  the 
west  over  the  bare  ploughland  or  the  wide- 
watered  plain  ;  the  wailing  of  the  wind  round  the 
firelit  house  ;  the  faint  twitter  of  awakening 
birds  in  the  ivy  ;  the  voice  and  smile  of  my  child- 
ren ;  the  music  breaking  the  silence  of  the  house 
at  evening.  In  a  moment  the  sensation  comes 
over  me,  that  the  sound  or  sight  is  sent  not 
vaguely  or  lightly,  but  deliberately  shown  to  me, 
for  some  great  purpose,  if  I  could  but  divine  it ; 
an  oracle  of  God,  if  I  could  but  catch  the  words 
He  utters  in  the  darkness  and  the  silence. 

February  r,  1889. 
My  dissatisfaction  and  depression  begin  to  tell 
on  me.  I  grow  nervous  and  strained  ;  I  am  often 
sleepless,  or  my  sleep  is  filled  by  vivid,  horrible, 
intolerable  dreams.  I  wake  early  in  the  clutch 
of  fear,  I  wrestle  at  times  with  intolerable  irri- 
tability ;  social  gatherings  become  unbearable  ; 
I  have  all  sorts  of  unmanning  sensations,  dizzi- 
nesses,  tremors ;    I    have   that  dreadful  sensa- 


loo  The  Altar  Fire 

tion  that  my  consciousness  of  things  and  people 
around  me,  is  slipping  away  from  me,  and  that 
only  by  a  strong  effort  can  one  retain  one's  hold 
upon  it.  I  fall  into  a  sort  of  dull  reverie,  and 
come  back  to  the  real  world  with  a  shock  of  sur- 
prise and  almost  horror.  I  went  the  other  day  to 
consult  a  great  doctor  about  this.  He  reassured 
me  ;  he  laughed  at  my  fears ;  he  told  me  that  it 
was  a  kind  of  neurasthenia,  not  fanciful  but  real ; 
that  my  brain  had  been  overworked,  and  was 
taking  its  revenge  ;  that  it  was  insufficiently 
nourished,  and  so  forth.  He  knew  who  I  was, 
and  treated  me  with  a  respectful  sympathy.  I 
told  him  I  had  taken  a  prolonged  holiday  since 
my  last  book,  and  he  replied  that  it  had  not  been 
long  enough.  • ' '  You  must  take  it  easy, ' '  he  said . 
"  Don't  do  anything  you  don't  like."  I  replied 
that  the  difficulty  was  to  find  anything  I  did 
like. "  He  smiled  at  this,  and  said  that  I  need 
not  be  afraid  of  breaking  down  ;  he  sounded  me, 
and  said  that  I  was  perfectly  strong.  "  Indeed," 
he  added,  "  you  might  go  to  a  dozen  doctors  to  be 
examined  for  an  insurance  policy,  and  you  would 
be  returned  as  absolutely  robust. ' '  In  the  course 
of  his  investigations,  he  applied  a  test,  quite  cas- 
ually and  as  if  he  were  hardly  interested,  the 


A  Grim  Shadow  loi 

point  of  which  he  thought  ( I  suppose )  that  I 
would  not  divine.  Unfortunately  I  knew  it,  and 
I  need  only  say  that  it  was  a  test  for  something 
very  bad  indeed.  That  was  rather  a  horrible 
moment,  when  a  grim  thing  out  of  the  shadow 
slipped  forward  for  a  moment,  and  looked  me  in 
the  face.  But  it  was  over  in  an  instant,  and  he 
went  on  to  other  things.     He  ended  by  saying  : 

*'  Mr. ,  you  are  not  as  bad  as  you  feel,  or 

even  as  you  think.  Just  take  it  quietly  ;  don't 
overdo  it,  but  don't  be  bored.  You  say  that  you 
can't  write  to  please  yourself  at  present.  Well, 
this  experience  is  partly  the  cause  and  partly 
the  result  of  your  condition.  You  have  used 
one  particular  part  of  your  brain  too  much,  and 
you  must  give  it  time  to  recover.  My  im- 
pression is  that  you  will  get  better  very  gradu- 
ally, and  I  can  only  repeat  that  there  is  no  sort  of 
cause  for  anxiety.  I  can't  help  you  more  than 
that,  and  I  am  saying  exactly  what  I  feel. 

I  looked  at  the  worn  face  and  kind  eyes  of  the 
man  whose  whole  life  is  spent  in  plumbing  abysses 
of  human  suffering.  What  a  terrible  life,  and  yet 
what  a  noble  one  !  He  spoke  as  though  he  had 
no  other  case  in  the  world  to  consider  except  my 
own  ;  yet  when  I  went  back  to  the  waiting-room 


I02  The  Altar  Fire 

to  get  my  hat,  and  looked  round  on  the  anxious- 
looking  crowd  of  patients  waiting  there,  each 
with  a  secret  burden,  I  felt  how  heavy  a  load  he 
must  be  carrying. 

There  is  a  certain  strength,  after  all,  in  having 
to  live  by  rule ;  and  I  have  derived,  I  find,  a  cer- 
tain comfort  in  having  to  abstain  from  things  that 
are  likely  to  upset  me,  not  because  I  wish  it,  but 
because  some  one  else  has  ordered  it.  So  I  strug- 
gle on.  The  worst  of  nerves  is  that  they  are  so 
whimsical ;  one  never  knows  when  to  expect  their 
assaults ;  the  temptation  is  to  think  that  they  at- 
tack one  when  it  is  most  inconvenient ;  but  this  is 
not  quite  the  case.  They  spare  one  when  one  ex- 
pects discomfort ;  and  again  when  one  feels  per- 
fectly secure,  they  leap  upon  one  from  their  lair. 
The  one  secret  of  dealing  with  the  malady  is  to 
think  of  it  as  a  definite  ailment,  not  to  regard  the 
attacks  as  the  vagaries  of  a  healthy  mind,  but  as 
the  symptoms  of  an  unhealthly  one.  So  much 
of  these  obsessions  appears  to  be  purely  mental  ; 
one  finds  oneself  the  prey  of  a  perfectly  cause- 
less depression,  which  involves  everything  in  its 
shadow.  As  soon  as  one  realises  that  this  is  not 
the  result  of  the  reflections  that  seem  to  cause  it, 
but  that  one  is,  so  to  speak,  merely  looking  at 


Nerves  103 

normal  conditions  through  coloured  glasses,  it  is 
a  great  help.  But  the  perennial  difficulty  is  to 
know  whether  one  needs  repose  and  inaction,  or 
whether  one  requires  the  stimulus  of  work  and 
activity.  Sometimes  an  unexpected  call  on  one's 
faculties  will  encourage  and  gladden  one ;  some- 
times it  will  leave  one  unstrung  and  limp.  A 
definite  illness  is  always  with  one,  more  or  less ; 
but  in  nervous  ailments,  one  has  interludes  of 
perfect  and  even  buoyant  health,  which  delude 
one  into  hoping  that  the  demon  has  gone  out. 

It  is  a  very  elaborate  form  of  torture  anyhow  ; 
and  I  confess  that  I  find  it  difficult  to  discern 
where  its  educative  effect  comes  in,  because  it 
makes  one  shrink  from  effort,  it  makes  one  timid, 
indecisive,  suspicious.  It  seems  to  encourage  all 
the  weaknesses  and  meannesses  of  the  spirit ;  and, 
worst  of  all,  it  centres  one's  thoughts  upon  one- 
self. Perhaps  it  enlarges  one's  sympathy  for  all 
secret  sufferers  ;  and  it  makes  me  grateful  for  the 
fact  that  I  have  had  so  little  ill-health  in  my  life. 
Yet  I  find  myself,  too,  testing  with  some  curiosity 
the  breezy  maxims  of  optimists.  A  cheerful 
writer  says  somewhere  :  *  *  Will  not  the  future  be 
the  better  and  the  richer  for  memories  of  past 
pleasure?    So  surely  must  the  sane  man  feel." 


I04  The  Altar  Fire 

Well,  he  must  be  very  sane  indeed.  It  takes  a 
very  burly  philosopher  to  think  of  the  future  as 
being  enriched  by  past  gladness,  when  one  seems 
to  have  forfeited  it,  and  when  one  is  by  no  means 
certain  of  getting  it  back.  One  feels  bitterly 
how  little  one  appreciated  it  at  the  time  ;  and  to 
rejoice  in  reflecting  how  much  past  happiness 
stands  to  one's  credit,  is  a  very  dispassionate  atti- 
tude. I  think  Dante  was  nearer  the  truth  when 
he  said  that  "a  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow  was 
remembering  happier  things. ' ' 

February  3,  1889. 
To  amuse  oneself— that  is  the  difficulty. 
Amusements  are  or  ought  to  be  the  childish,  irra- 
tional, savage  things  which  a  man  goes  on  doing 
and  practising,  in  virtue,  I  suppose,  of  the  noble 
privilege  of  reason,  far  longer  than  any  other 
animal — o'iAy  young  animals  amuse  themselves  ;  a 
dog  perhaps  retains  the  faculty  longer  than  most 
animals,  but  he  only  does  it  out  of  sympathy  and 
companionship,  to  amuse  his  inscrutable  owner, 
not  to  amuse  himself.  Amusements  ought  to  be 
things  which  one  wants  to  do,  and  which  one  is 
slightly  ashamed  of  doing — enough  ashamed,  I 
mean,  to  give  rather  elaborate  reasons  for  con- 


Amusements  105 

tinuing  them.  If  one  shoots,  for  instance,  one 
ought  to  say  that  it  gets  one  out  of  doors,  and 
that  what  one  really  enjoys  is  the  country,  and 
so  forth.  Personally  I  was  never  much  amused 
by  amusements,  and  gave  them  up  as  soon  as  I 
decently  could.  I  regret  it  now.  I  wish  we 
were  all  taught  a  handicraft  as  a  regular  part  of 
education  !  I  used  to  sketch,  and  strum  a  piano 
once,  but  I  cannot  deliberately  set  to  work  on 
such  things  again.  I  gave  them  all  up  when  I 
became  a  writer,  really,  I  suppose,  because  I  did 
not  care  for  them,  but  nominally  on  the  grounds 
of  **  resolute  limitation,"  as  I,ord  Acton  said — 
with  the  idea  that  if  you  prune  off  the  otiose 
boughs  of  a  tree,  you  throw  the  strength  of  the 
sap  into  the  boughs  you  retain.  I  see  now  that 
it  was  a  mistake.  But  it  is  too  late  to  begin  again 
now.  I  was  reading  Kingsley's  L,ife  the  other 
day.  He  used  to  overwork  himself  periodically — 
use  up  the  grey  matter  at  the  base  of  his  brain, 
as  he  described  it ;  but  he  had  a  hundred 
things  that  he  wanted  to  do  besides  writing — 
fishing,  entomologising,  botanising.  Browning 
liked  modelling  in  clay,  Wordsworth  liked  long 
walks,  Byron  had  enough  to  do  to  keep  himself 
thin,  Tennyson  had  his  pipe,  Morris  made  tapes- 


io6  The  Altar  Fire 

try  at  a  loom.  Southey  had  no  amusements,  and 
he  died  of  softening  of  the  brain.  The  happy 
people  are  those  who  have  work  which  they  love, 
and  a  hobby  of  a  totally  different  kind  which 
they  love  even  better.  But  I  doubt  whether  one 
can  make  a  hobby  for  oneself  in  middle  age, 
unlefis  one  is  a  very  resolute  person  indeed. 

February  7,  1889. 
The  children  went  off  yesterday  to  spend  the 
inside  of  the  day  with  a  parson  hard  by,  who  has 
three  children  of  his  own  about  the  same  age. 
They  did  not  want  to  go,  of  course,  and  it  was 
particularly  terrible  to  them,  because  neither  I 
nor  their  mother  was  to  go  with  them.  But  I 
was  anxious  they  should  go  :  there  is  nothing 
better  for  children  than  to  visit  occasionally  at  a 
strange  house,  and  to  go  by  themselves  without 
an  elder  person  to  depend  upon.  It  gives  them 
independence  and  gets  rid  of  shyness.  They  end 
by  enjoying  themselves  immensely,  and  perhaps 
making  some  romantic  friendship.  As  a  child,  I 
was  almost  tearfully  insistent  that  I  should  not 
have  to  go  on  such  visits  ;  but  yet  a  few  days  of 
the  sort  stand  out  in  my  childhood  with  a  vivid- 
ness and   a  distinctness,  which  show  what  an 


Despair  107 

efifect  they  produced,  and   how  they  quickened 
one's  perceptive  and  inventive  faculties. 

When  they  were  gone  I  went  out  with  Maud. 
I  was  at  my  very  worst,  I  fear  ;  full  of  heaviness 
and  deeply  disquieted  ;  desiring  I  knew  well  what 
— some  quickening  of  emotion,  some  hopeful  im- 
pulse— but  utterly  unable  to  attain  it.  We  had 
a  very  sad  talk.  I  tried  to  make  it  clear  to  her 
how  desolate  I  felt,  and  to  win  some  kind  of  for- 
giveness for  my  sterile  and  loveless  mood.  She 
tried  to  comfort  me  ;  she  said  that  it  was  only 
like  passing  through  a  tunnel  ;  she  made  it  clear 
to  me,  by  some  unspoken  communication,  that  I 
was  dearer  than  ever  to  her  in  these  days  of 
sorrow  ;  but  there  was  a  shadow  in  her  mind,  the 
shadow  that  fell  from  the  loneliness  in  which  I 
moved,  the  sense  that  she  could  not  share  my 
misery  with  me.  I  tried  to  show  her  that  the  one 
thing  one  could  not  share  was  emptiness.  If  one's 
cup  is  full  of  interests,  plans,  happinesses,  even 
tangible  anxieties,  it  is  easy  and  natural  to  make 
them^known  to  one  whom  one  loves  best.  But 
one  cannot  share  the  horror  of  the  formless  dark  ; 
the  vacuous  and  tortured  mind.  It  is  the  dark 
absence  of  anything  that  is  the  source  of  my 
wretchedness.     If  there  were  pain,  grief,  mourn- 


io8  The  Altar  Fire 

ful  energy  of  any  kind,  one  could  put  it  into 
words  ;  but  how  can  one  find  expression  for 
what  is  a  total  eclipse  ? 

It  was  not,  I  said,  that  anything  had  come 
between  her  and  me  ;  but  I  seemed  to  be  remote, 
withdrawn,  laid  apart  like  some  stiffening  corpse 
in  the  tomb.  She  tried  to  reassure  me,  to  show 
me  that  it  was  mainly  physical,  the  overstrain  of 
long  and  actively  enjoyed  work,  and  that  all  I 
,  needed  was  rest.  She  did  not  say  one  word  of 
reproach,  or  anything  to  imply  that  I  was  un- 
manly and  cowardly — indeed,  she  contrived,  I 
know  not  how,  to  lead  me  to  think  that  my  state 
was  in  ordinary  life  hardly  apparent.  Once  she 
asked  pathetically  if  there  was  no  way  in  which 
she  could  help.  I  had  not  the  heart  to  say  what 
was  in  my  mind,  that  it  would  be  better  and 
easier  for  me  if  she  ignored  my  unhappiness  alto- 
gether ;  and  that  sympathy  and  compassion  onl)' 
plunged  me  deeper  into  gloom,  as  showing  me 
that  it  was  evident  that  there  was  something 
amiss — but  I  said,  "  No,  there  is  nothing  ;  and 
no  one  can  help  me,  unless  God  kindles  the  light 
He  has  quenched.  Be  your  own  dear  self  as 
much  as  possible  ;  think  and  speak  as  little  of 
me  as  you  can," — and  then  I  added,  ''Dearest, 


The  Conflict  109 

my  love  for  you  is  here,  as  strong  and  pure  as 
ever — don't  doubt  that — only  I  cannot  find  it  or 
come  near  it — it  is  hidden  from  me  somewhere — 
I  am  like  a  man  wandering  in  dark  fields,  who 
sees  the  fire-lit  window  of  his  home  ;  he  cannot 
feel  the  warmth,  but  he  knows  that  it  is  there 
waiting  for  him.  He  cannot  return  till  he  has 
found  that  of  which  he  is  in  search." 

* '  Could  he  not  give  up  the  search  ? ' '  said 
Maud,  smiling  tearfully.  "  Ah,  not  yet,"  I  said. 
"You  do  not  know,  Maud,  what  my  work  has 
been  to  me — no  man  can  ever  explain  that  to  any 
woman,  I  think  :  for  women  live  in  life,  but  man 
lives  in  work.  Man  does^  woman  is.  There  is 
the  difierence." 

We  drew  near  the  village.  The  red  sun  was 
sinking  over  the  plain,  a  ball  of  fire;  the  mist 
was  creeping  up  from  the  low-lying  fields;  the 
moon  hung,  a  white  crescent,  high  in  the  blue 
sky.  We  went  to  the  little  inn,  where  we  had 
been  before.  We  ordered  tea — we  were  to  return 
by  train— and  Maud  being  tired,  I  left  her  while 
I  took  a  turn  in  the  village,  and  explored  the 
remains  of  an  old  manor-house,  which  I  had  seen 
often  from  the  road.  I  was  intolerably  restless. 
I  found  a  lane  which  led  to  the  fields  behind  the 


no  The  Altar  Fire 

tnanor.  It  was  a  beautiful  scene.  To  the  left  of 
me  ran  the  great  plain  brimmed  with  mist ;  the 
manor,  with  its  high  gables  and  chimney-stacks, 
stood  up  over  an  orchard,  surrounded  by  a  high, 
ancient  brick  wall,  with  a  gate  between  tall  gate- 
posts surmounted  by  stone  balls.  The  old  pas- 
ture lay  round  the  house,  and  there  were  many 
ancient  elms  and  sycamores  forming  a  small  park, 
in  the  boughs  of  which  the  rooks,  who  were  now 
streaming  home  from  the  fields,  were  clamorous. 
I  found  myself  near  a  chain  of  old  fish-ponds, 
with  thorn-thickets  all  about  them ;  and  here  the 
old  house  stood  up  against  a  pure  evening  sky, 
rusty  red  below,  melting  into  a  pure  green  above. 
My  heart  went  out  in  wonder  at  the  thought  of 
the  unknown  lives  lived  in  this  place,  the  past 
joys,  the  forgotten  sorrows.  What  did  it  mean 
for  me,  the  incredible  and  caressing  beauty  of  the 
scene?  Not  only  did  it  not  comfort  me,  but  it 
seemed  to  darken  the  gloom  of  my  own  unhappy 
mind.  Suddenly,  as  with  a  surge  of  agony,  my 
misery  flowed  in  upon  me.  I  clutched  the  rail 
where  I  stood,  and  bowed  my  head  down  in  utter 
wretchedness.  There  came  upon  me,  as  with  a 
sort  of  ghastly  hopefulness,  the  temptation  to  leave 
it  all,  to  put  my  case  back  into  God's  hands.     Per- 


The  Conflict  m 

haps  it  was  to  this  that  I  was  moving  ?  There 
might  be  a  new  life  waiting  for  me,  but  it  could 
not  well  be  as  intolerable  as  this.  Perhaps  no- 
thing but  silence  and  unconsciousness  awaited 
me,  a  sleep  unstirred  by  any  dream.  Even  Maud^ 
I  thought,  in  her  sorrow,  would  understand.  How 
long  I  stood  there  I  do  not  know,  but  the  air 
darkened  about  me  and  the  mist  rose  in  long 
veils  about  the  pasture  with  a  deadly  chill.  But 
then  there  came  back  a  sort  of  grim  courage  into 
my  mind,  that  not  so  could  it  be  ended.  The 
thought  of  Maud  and  the  children  rose  before 
me,  and  I  knew  I  could  not  leave  them,  unless  I 
were  withdrawn  from  them.  I  must  face  it,  I 
must  fight  it  out ;  though  I  could  and  did  pray 
with  all  my  might  that  God  might  take  away  my 
life :  I  thought  with  what  an  utter  joy  I  should 
feel  the  pang,  the  faintness,  of  death  creep  over 
me  there  in  the  dim  pasture ;  but  I  knew  in  my 
heart  that  it  was  not  to  be;  and  soon  I  went 
slowly  back  through  the  thickening  gloom.  I 
found  Maud  awaiting  me:  and  I  know  in  that 
moment  that  some  touch  of  the  dark  conflict  I 
had  been  through  had  made  itself  felt  in  her 
mind ;  and  indeed  I  think  she  read  something  of 
it  in  my  face,  from  the  startled  glance  she  turned 


1 1 2  The  Altar  Fire 

upon  me.  Perhaps  it  would  "have  been  better  if 
in  that  quiet  hour  I  could  have  told  her  the 
thought  which  had  been  in  my  mind ;  but  I  could 
not  do  that;  and  indeed  it  seemed  to  me  as 
though  some  unseen  light  had  sprung  up  for  me, 
shooting  and  broadening  in  the  darkness.  I  ap- 
prehended that  I  was  no  longer  to  suffer,  I  was 
to  fight.  Hitherto  I  had  yielded  to  my  misery, 
but  the  time  was  come  to  row  against  the  current, 
not  to  drift  with  it. 

It  was  dark  when  we  left  the  little  inn;  the 
moon  had  brightened  to  a  crescent  of  pale  gold ; 
the  last  dim  orange  stain  of  sunset  still  slept 
above  the  mist.  It  seemed  to  me  as  though  I 
had  somehow  touched  the  bottom.  How  could 
I  tell?  Perhaps  the  same  horrible  temptation 
would  beset  me,  again  and  again,  deepening  into 
a  despairing  purpose;  the  fertile  mind  built  up 
rapidly  a  dreadful  vista  of  possibilities,  terrible 
facts  that  might  have  to  be  faced.  Even  so  the 
dark  mood  beckoned  me  again ;  better  to  end  it, 
said  a  hollow  voice,  better  to  let  your  dear  ones 
suffer  the  worst,  with  a  sorrow  that  will  lessen 
year  by  year,  than  sink  into  a  broken  shadowed 
life  of  separation  and  restraint — but  again  it 
passed ;  again  a  grim  resolution  came  to  my  aid. 


Within  the  Forbidden  Door     113 

Then,  as  we  sped  homewards  in  the  speeding 
train,  there  came  over  me  another  thought. 
Here  was  I,  who  had  lightly  trafficked  with 
human  emotions,  who  had  written  with  a  ro- 
mantic glow  of  the  dark  things  of  life,  despair, 
agony,  thoughts  of  self-destruction,  insane  fears, 
here  was  I  at  last  confronted  with  them.  I  could 
never  dare,  I  felt,  to  speak  of  such  things  again ; 
ware  such  dark  mysteries  to  be  used  to  heighten 
the  sense  of  security  and  joy,  to  give  a  trivial 
reader  a  thrill  of  pleasure,  a  sympathetic  reader 
a  thrill  of  luxurious  emotion?  No,  there  was 
nothing  uplifting  or  romantic  about  them  when 
they  came ;  they  were  dark  as  the  grave,  cold  as 
the  underlying  clay.  What  a  vile  and  loathsome 
profanation,  deserving  indeed  of  a  grim  punish- 
ment, to  make  a  picturesque  background  out  of 
such  things  !  At  length  I  had  had  my  bitter  taste 
of  grief,  and  drew  in  to  my  trembling  spirit  the 
shuddering  chill  of  despair.  I  had  stepped,  like 
the  light  hearted  maiden  of  the  old  story,  within 
the  forbidden  door,  and  the  ugly,  the  ghastly 
reality  of  the  place  had  burst  upon  me,  the  hud- 
dled bodies,  the  basin  filled  with  blood.  One  had 
read  in  books  of  men  and  women  whose  life  had 
been  suddenly  curdled  into  slow  miseries.     One 

8 


1 14  The  Altar  Fire 

had  half  blamed  them  in  one's  thought;  one  had 
felt  that  any  experience,  however  dark  and  deep, 
must  have  its  artistic  value ;  and  one  had  thought 
that  they  should  have  emerged  with  new  zest 
into  life.  I  understood  it  now,  how  life  could  be 
frozen  at  its  very  source,  how  one  could  cry  out 
with  Job  curses  on  the  day  that  gave  one  birth, 
and  how  gladly  one  would  turn  one's  face  away 
from  the  world  and  all  its  cheerful  noise,  aw^aiting 
the  last  stroke  of  God. 

February  20,  1889. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  Cornish  farmer  who,  re- 
turning home  one  dark  and  misty  night,  struck 
across  the  moorland,  -every  yard  of  which  he  knew, 
in  order  to  avoid  a  long  tramp  by  road.  In 
one  place  there  were  a  number  of  disused  mine- 
shafts  ;— the  railing  which  had  once  protected 
them  had  rotted  away,  and  it  had  been  no  one's 
business  to  see  that  it  was  renewed — some  few  had 
been  filled  up,  but  many  of  them  were  hundreds 
of  feet  deep,  and  entirely  unguarded.  The  farmer 
first  missed  the  track,  and  after  long  w^andering 
found  himself  at  last  among  the  shafts.  He  sate 
down,  knowing  the  extreme  danger  of  his  situa- 
tion, and  resolved  to  wait  till  the  morning ;  but 


The  Mine-Shaft  115 

it  became  so  cold  that  he  dared  stay  no  longer,  for 
fear  of  being  frozen  alive,  and  with  infinite  precau- 
tions he  tried  to  make  his  way  out  of  the  danger- 
ous region,  following  the  downward  slope  of  the 
ground.  In  spite,  however,  of  all  his  care,  he  found 
suddenly,  on  putting  his  foot  down,  that  he  was  on 
the  edge  of  a  shaft,  and  that  his  foot  was  dangling 
in  vacancy.  He  threw  himself  backwards  but  too 
late,  and  he  slid  down  several  feet,  grasping  at 
the  grass  and  heather  ;  his  foot  fortunately  struck 
against  a  large  stone,  which  though  precariously 
poised,  arrested  his  fall ;  and  he  hung  there  for 
some  hours  in  mortal  anguish,  not  daring  to 
move,  clinging  to  a  tuft  of  heather,  shouting  at 
intervals,  in  the  hope  that,  when  he  did  not  return 
home,  a  search-party  might  be  sent  out  to  look  for 
him.  At  last  he  heard,  to  his  intense  relief,  the 
sound  of  voices  hailing  him,  and  presently  the 
gleam  of  lanterns  shot  through  the  mist.  He  ut- 
tered agonising  cries,  and  the  rescuers  were  soon 
at  his  side;  when  he  found  that  he  had  been  lying 
in  a  shaft  which  had  been  filled  up,  and  that  the 
firm  ground  was  about  a  foot  below  him ;  and 
that,  in  fact,  if  the  stone  that  supported  him  had 
given  way,  he  would  have  been  spared  a  long 
period  of  almost  intolerable  horror. 


ii6  The  Altar  Fire 

It  is  a  good  parable  of  many  of  our  disquieting 
fears  and  anxieties  ;  as  I^ord  Beaconsfield  said, 
the  greatest  tragedies  of  his  life  had  been  things 
that  never  happened  ;  Carlyle  truly  and  beauti- 
fully said  that  the  reason  why  the  past  always  ap- 
peared to  be  beautiful,  in  retrospect,  was  that  the 
element  of  fear  was  absent  from  it.  William  Mor- 
ris said  a  trenchant  thing  on  the  same  subject. 
He  attended  a  Socialist  meeting  of  a  very  hostile 
kind,  which  he  anticipated  with  much  depression. 
When  some  one  asked  him  how  the  meeting  had 
gone  off  he  said,  *'  Well,  it  was  fully  as  damnable 
as  I  had  expected — a  thing  which  seldom  hap- 
pens. ' '  A  good  test  of  the  happiness  of  any  one' s 
life  is  to  what  extent  he  has  had  trials  to  bear 
which  are  unbearable  even  to  recollect.  I  am  my- 
self of  a  highly  imaginative  and  anxious  tempera- 
ment, and  I  have  had  many  hours  of  depression  at 
the  thought  of  some  unpleasant  anticipation  or 
disagreeable  contingency,  and  I  can  honestly  say 
that  nothing  has  ever  been  so  bad,  when  it  act- 
ually occurred,  as  it  had  represented  itself  to  me 
beforehand.  There  are  a  few  incidents  in  my  life, 
the  recollection  of  which  I  deliberately  shun  ;  but 
they  have  always  been  absolutely  unexpected  and 
unanticipated  calamities.     Yet  even  these  have 


Anticipations  117 

never  been  as  bad  as  I  should  have  expected  them 
to  be.^  The  strange  thiug  is  that  experience  never 
comes  to  one's  aid,  and  that  one  never  gets  pa- 
tience or  courage  from  the  thought  that  the  reality 
will  be  in  all  probability  less  distressing  than  the 
anticipation  ;  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  fertile 
imagination  is  always  careful  to  add  that  this  time 
the  occasion  will  be  intolerable,  and  that  at  all 
events  it  is  better  to  be  prepared  for  the  worst  that 
may  happen.  Moreover,  one  wastes  force  in  an- 
ticipating perhaps  half-a-dozen  painful  possibili- 
ties, when,  after  all,  they  are  alternatives,  and  only 
one  of  them  can  happen.  That  is  what  makes  my 
present  situation  so  depressing,  that  I  instinctively 
clothe  it  in  its  worst  horrors,  and  look  forward  to 
a  long  and  dreary  life,  in  which  my  only  occupa- 
tion will  be  an  attempt  to  pass  the  weary  hours. 
Faithless  ?  yes,  of  course  it  is  faithless  !  but  the 
rational  philosophy,  which  says  that  it  will  all 
probably  come  right,  does  not  penetrate  to  the 
deeper  region  in  which  the  mind  says  to  itself  that 
there  is  no  hope  of  amendment. 

Can  one  acquire,  by  any  effort  of  the  mind,  this 
kind  of  patience?  I  do  not  think  one  can.  The 
most  that  one  can  do  is  to  behave  as  far  as  possi- 
ble like  one  playing  a  heavy  part  upon  the  stage, 


ii8  The  Altar  Fire 

to  say  with  trembling  lips  that  one  has  hope,  when 
the  sick  mind  beneath  cries  out  that  there  is  none. 
Perhaps  one  can  practise  a  sort  of  indifference, 
and  hope  that  advancing  years  may  still  the 
beating  heart  and  numb  the  throbbing  nerve. 
But  I  do  not  even  desire  to  live  life  on  these 
terms.  The  one  great  article  of  my  creed  has 
been  that  one  ought  not  to  lose  zest  and  spirit,  or 
acquiesce  slothfully  in  comfortable  and  material 
conditions,  but  that  life  ought  to  be  full  of  per- 
ception and  emotion.  Here  again  lies  my  mis- 
take ;  that  it  has  not  been  perception  or  emotion 
that  I  have  practised,  but  the  art  of  expressing 
what  I  have  perceived  and  felt.  Of  course,  I  wish 
with  all  my  heart  and  soul  that  it  were  otherwise  ; 
but  it  seems  that  I  have  drifted  so  far  into  these 
tepid,  sun-warmed  shallows,  the  shallows  of 
egoism  and  self-centred  absorption,  that  there 
is  no  possibility  of  my  finding  my  way  again  to 
the  wholesome  brine,  to  the  fresh  movement  of 
the  leaping  wave.  I  am  like  one  of  those  who 
lingered  so  long  in  the  enchanted  isle  of  Circe, 
listening  luxuriously  to  the  melting  cadences  of 
her  magic  song,  that  I  have  lost  all  hope  of  extri- 
cating myself  from  the  spell.  The  old  free  days, 
when  the  heart  beat  light,  and  the  breeze  blew 


A  Visit  119 

keen  against  my  brow,  have  become  only  a  mem- 
ory of  delights,  just  enabling  me  to  speak  deftly 
and  artfully  of  the  strong  joys  which  I  have 
forfeited. 

February  24,  1889. 

I  have  been  away  for  some  days,  paying  a  visit 
to  an  old  friend,  a  bachelor  clergyman  living  in 
the  country.  The  only  other  occupant  of  the 
house,  a  comfortable  vicarage,  is  his  curate.  I 
am  better — ashamed  almost  to  think  how  much 
better — for  the  change.  It  is  partly  the  new 
place,  the  new  surroundings,  the  new  minds,  no 
doubt.  But  it  is  also  the  change  of  atmosphere. 
At  home  I  am  surrounded  by  sympathy  and 
compassion  ;  however  unobstrusive  they  are,  1 
feel  that  they  are  there.  I  feel  that  trivial  things, 
words,  actions,  looks  are  noted,  commented  upon, 
held  to  be  significant.  If  I  am  silent,  I  must  be 
depressed  ;  if  I  talk  and  smile,  I  am  making  an 
effort  to  overcome  my  depression.  It  sounds  un- 
loving and  ungracious  to  resent  this  :  but  I  don't 
undervalue  the  care  and  tenderness  that  cause  it ; 
at  the  same  time  it  adds  to  the  strain  by  imposing 
upon  me  a  sort  of  vigilance,  a  constant  effort  to 
behave  normally.  It  is  infinitely  and  deeply 
touching  to  feel  love  all  about  me  ;  but  in  such  a 


I20  The  Altar  Fire 

state  of  mind  as  mine,  one  is  shy  of  emotion,  one 
dreads  it,  one  shuns  it.  I  suppose  it  argues  a 
want  of  simplicity,  of  perfect  manfulness,  to  feel 
this  ;  but  few  or  no  women  can  instinctively  feel 
the  difference.  In  a  real  and  deep  affliction,  one 
that  could  be  frankly  confessed,  the  more  affec- 
tion and  sympathy  that  one  can  have  the  better  ; 
it  is  the  one  thing  that  sustains.  But  my  un- 
happiness  is  not  a  real  thing  altogether,  not  a 
frank  thing  ;  the  best  medicine  for  it  is  to  think 
little  about  it ;  the  only  help  one  desires  is  the 
evidence  that  one  does  not  need  sympathy  ;  and 
sympathy  only  turns  one's  thoughts  inwards,  and 
makes  one  feel  that  one  is  forlorn  and  desolate, 
when  the  only  hope  is  to  feel  neither. 

At  Hapton  it  was  just  the  reverse  ;  neither 
Musgrave  nor  the  curate,  Templeton,  troubled 
his  head  about  my  fancies.  I  don't  imagine 
that  Musgrave  noticed  that  anything  was  the 
matter  with  me.  If  I  was  silent,  he  merely 
thought  I  had  nothing  to  say  ;  he  took  for  granted 
I  was  in  my  normal  state,  and  the  result  was  that 
I  temporarily  recovered  it. 

Then,  too,  the  kind  of  talk  I  got  was  a  relief. 
With  women,  the  real  talk  is  intime  talk ;  the 
world  of  politics,  books,  men,  facts,  incidents,  is 


Stimulating  Companionship     121 

merely  a  setting ;  and  when  they  talk  about 
them,  it  is  merely  to  pass  the  time,  as  a  man 
turns  to  a  game.  At  Hapton,  Musgrave  chatted 
away  about  his  neighbours,  his  boys'  club,  his 
new  organ,  his  bishop,  his  work.  I  used  to  think 
him  rather  a  proser ;  how  I  blessed  his  prosing 
now  !  I  took  long  walks  with  him  ;  he  asked 
a  few  perfunctory  questions  about  my  books,  but 
otherwise  he  was  quite  content  to  prattle  on,  like 
a  little  brook,  about  all  that  was  in  his  mind,  and 
he  was  more  than  content  if  I  asked  an  occa- 
sional question  or  assented  courteously.  Then 
we  had  some  good  talks  about  the  rural  problems 
of  education — he  is  a  sensible  and  intelligent  man 
enough— and  some  excellent  arguments  about 
the  movement  of  religion,  where  I  found  him  un- 
expectedly liberal-minded.  He  left  me  to  do 
very  much  what  I  liked.  I  read  in  the  mornings 
and  before  dinner ;  and  after  dinner  we  smoked 
or  even  played  a  game  of  dummy  whist.  It  is  a 
pretty  part  of  the  country,  and  when  he  was 
occupied  in  the  afternoon,  I  walked  about  by  my- 
self. From  first  to  last  not  a  single  word  fell 
from  Musgrave  to  indicate  that  he  thought  me 
in  any  way  different  or  suspected  that  I  was 
not  perfectly   content,    with    the    blessed  result 


122  The  Altar  Fire 

that   I    immediately   became    exactly   what    he 
thought  me. 

I  got  on  no  better  with  my  writing  ;  my  brain 
is  as  bare  as  a  winter  wood  ;  but  I  found  that  I 
did  not  rebel  against  that.  Of  course  it  does  not 
reveal  a  very  dignified  temperament,  that  one 
should  so  take  colour  from  one's  surroundings. 
If  I  can  be  equable  and  good-humoured  here,  I 
ought  to  be  able  to  be  equable  and  good-hum- 
oured at  home ;  at  the  same  time  I  am  conscious 
of  an  intense  longing  to  see  Maud  and  the  child- 
ren. Probably  I  should  do  better  to  absent  my- 
self resolutely  from  home  at  stated  intervals  ;  and 
I  think  it  argued  a  fine  degree  of  perception  in 
Maud  that  she  decided  not  to  accompany  me, 
though  she  was  pressed  to  come.  I  am  going 
home  to-morrow,  delighted  at  the  thought,  grate- 
ful to  the  good  Musgrave,  in  a  more  normal 
frame  of  mind  than  I  have  been  for  months. 

February  28,  1889. 
One  of  the  most  depressing  things  about  my 
present  condition  is  that  I  feel,  not  only  so  use- 
less, but  so  prickly,  so  ugly,  so  unlovable.  Even 
Maud's  affection,  stronger  and  more  tender  than 
ever,  does  not  help  me,  because  I  feel  that  she 


Consolation  123 

cannot  love  me  for  what  I  am,  but  for  what  she 
remembers  me  as  being,  and  hopes  that  I  may  be 
again.  I  know  it  is  not  so,  and  that  she  would 
love  me  whatever  I  did  or  became  ;  but  I  cannot 
realise  that  now. 

A  few  days  ago  an  old  friend  came  to  see  me  ; 
and  I  was  so  futile,  so  fractious,  so  dull,  so  mel- 
ancholy with  him  that  I  wrote  to  him  afterwards 
to  apologise  for  my  condition,  telling  him  that  I 
knew  that  I  was  not  myself,  and  hoped  he  would 
forgive  me  for  not  making  more  of  an  effort. 
To-day  I  have  had  one  of  the  manliest,  ten- 
derest,  most  beautiful  letters  I  have  ever  had  in 
my  life.  He  says,  "  Of  course  I  saw  thai  you 
were  not  in  your  usual  mood,  but  if  you  had  pre- 
tended to  be,  if  you  had  kept  me  at  arm's  length,  if 
you  had  grimaced  and  made  prcterice^  we  should 
have  been  no  nearer  in  spirit.  I  was  proud  a7id 
grateful  that  you  should  so  have  trusted  me,  as  to  let 
me  see  ijito  your  heart  and  mind ;  and  you  mtist  be- 
lieve me  when  I  say  that  I  never  loved  and  honoured 
you  more.  I  understood  fully  what  a  deep  and  iii- 
supportable  trial  your  present  state  of  mind  must 
be  ;  and  I  will  be  frank — why  should  I  not  be  f — 
and  say  that  I  thought  you  were  bearing  it  bravely, 
and  what  is  better  still,  simply  and  naturally.     I 


124  The  Altar  Fire 

seemed  to  come  closer  to  you  in  those  hours  than 
I  have  ever  done  before ^  and  to  realise  better  what 
you  were.  *  To  make  oneself  beloved, '  says  an  old 
writer^  *  is  to  make  oneself  usefiil  to  others ' — and  you 
helped  me  perhaps  most^  when  you  knew  it  least 
yourself.  I  zvo?it  tell  you  not  to  brood  upon  or  ex- 
aggerate your  trouble^you  hiow  that  well  enough 
yourself.  But  believe  me  that  such  times  are  indeed 
times  of  growth  and  expansion^  even  when  one 
seems  most  beaten  back  upo7i  oneself^  most  futile^ 
most  unmanly.  So  take  a  little  comfort,  my  old 
friend^  and  fare  onwards  hopefully. ' ' 

That  is  a  very  beautiful  and  wise  letter,  and  I 
cannot  say  how  much  it  has  meant  to  me.  It  is 
t  letter  that  forges  an  invisible  chain,  which  is 
yet  stronger  than  the  strongest  tie  that  circum- 
stance can  forge  ;  it  is  a  lantern  for  one's  feet,  and 
one  treads  a  little  more  firmly  in  the  dark  path, 
where  the  hillside  looms  formless  through  the 
shade. 

March  3,  1889. 

Best  of  all  the  psalms  I  love  the  Hundred- and- 
nineteenth ;  yet  as  a  child  what  a  weary  thing  I 
thought  it.  It  was  long,  it  was  monotonous  ;  it 
dwelt  with  a  tiresome  persistency,  I  used  to  think, 


Psalm  CXIX  125 

Upon  dull  things— laws,  commandments,  statutes. 
Now  that  I  am  older,  it  seems  to  me  one  of  the 
most  human  of  all  documents.  It  is  tender,  pen- 
sive, personal  ;  other  psalms  are  that ;  but  Psalm 
cxix.  is  intinie  and  autobiographical.  One  is 
brought  very  close  to  a  human  spirit ;  one  hears 
his  prayers,  his  sighs,  the  dropping  of  his  tears. 
Then,  too,  in  spite  of  its  sadness,  there  is  a  deep 
hopefulness  and  faithfulness  about  it,  a  firm  be- 
lief in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  what  is  good  and 
true,  a  certainty  that  what  is  pure  and  beauti- 
ful is  worth  holding  on  to,  whatever  may  hap- 
pen ;  a  nearness  to  God,  a  quiet  confidence  in 
Him.  It  is  all  in  a  subdued  and  minor  key,  but 
swelling  up  at  intervals  into  a  chord  of  ravishing 
sweetness. 

There  is  never  the  least  note  of  loudness,  none 
of  that  terrible  patriotism  which  defaces  many 
of  the  psalms,  the  patriotism  which  makes  men 
believe  that  God  is  the  friend  of  the  chosen  race, 
and  the  foe  of  all  other  races,  the  ugly  self-sufiic- 
iency  that  contemplates  with  delight,  not  the 
salvation  and  inclusion  of  the  heathen,  but  their 
discomfiture  and  destruction.  The  worst  side  of 
the  Puritan  found  delight  in  those  cruel  and  mili- 
tant psalms,  revelling  in  the  thought  that  God 


126  The  Altar  Fire 

would  rain  upon  the  ungodly  fire  and  brimstone, 
storm  and  tempest,  and  exulting  in  the  blasting 
of  the  breath  of  His  displeasure.  Could  anything 
be  more  alien  to  the  spirit  of  Christ  than  all  that  ? 
But  here,  in  this  melancholy  psalm,  there  breathes 
a  spirit  naturally  Christian,  loving  peace  and  con- 
templation, very  weary  of  the  strife. 

I  have  said  it  is  autobiographical ;  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  it  was  a  fruitful  literary 
device  in  those  early  days,  to  cast  one's  own 
thought  in  the  mould  of  some  well-known 
character.  In  this  psalm  I  have  sometimes 
thought  that  the  writer  had  Daniel  in  mind  — 
the  surroundings  of  the  psalm  suit  the  circum- 
stances of  Daniel  with  singular  exactness.  But 
even  so,  it  was  the  work  of  a  man,  I  think,  who 
had  suffered  the  sorrows  of  which  he  wrote. 
I,et  me  try  to  disentangle  what  manner  of 
man  he  was. 

He  was  young  and  humble  ;  he  was  rich,  or  had 
opportunities  of  becoming  so  ;  he  was  an  exile,  or 
lived  in  an  uncongenial  society  ;  he  was  the  mem- 
ber of  a  court  where  he  was  derided,  disliked, 
slandered,  plotted  against,  and  even  persecuted. 
We  can  clearly  discern  his  own  character.  He 
was  timid,  and  yet  ambitious  ;  he  was  tempted  to 


Psalm  CXIX  127 

use  deceit  and  hypocrisy,  to  acquiesce  in  the  tone 
about  him  ;  he  was  inclined  to  be  covetous ;  he 
had  sinned,  and  had  learnt  something  of  holiness 
from  his  fall ;  he  was  given  to  solitude  and 
prayer.  He  was  sensitive,  and  his  sorrows  had 
affected  his  health  ;  he  was  sleepless,  and  had  lost 
the  bloom  of  his  youth. 

All  this  and  more  we  can  read  of  him  ;  but 
what  is  the  saddest  touch  of  all  is  the  isolation  in 
which  he  lived.  There  is  not  a  word  to  show  that 
he  met  with  any  sympathy ;  indeed  the  misunder- 
standing, whatever  it  was,  that  overshadowed 
him,  had  driven  acquaintances,  friends,  and  lov- 
ers away  from  him  ;  and  yet  his  tender  confidence 
in  God  never  fails  ;  he  feels  that  in  his  passionate 
worship  of  virtue  and  truth,  his  intense  love  of 
purity  and  justice,  he  has  got  a  treasure  which  is 
more  to  him  than  riches  or  honour,  or  even  than 
human  love.  He  speaks  as  though  this  passion 
for  holiness  had  been  the  very  thing  that  had 
cost  him  so  dear,  and  that  exposed  him  to  de- 
rision and  dislike.  Perhaps  he  had  refused  to 
fall  in  with  some  customary  form  of  evil,  and  his 
resistance  to  temptation  had  led  him  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  precisian  and  a  saint  ?  I  have  little 
doubt  myself  that  this  was  so.     He  speaks  as  one 


128  The  Altar  Fire 

might  speak  who  had  been  so  smitten  with  the 
desire  for  purity  and  rightness  of  life,  that  he 
could  no  longer  even  seem  to  condone  the  op- 
posite. And  yet  he  was  evidently  not  one  who 
dared  to  withstand  and  rebuke  evil  ;  the  most  he 
could  do  was  to  abstain  from  it ;  and  the  result 
was  that  he  saw  the  careless  and  evil-minded 
people  about  him  prosperous,  happy,  and  light- 
hearted,  while  he  was  himself  plunged  by  his 
own  act  in  misunderstanding  and  solitude  and 
tears. 

And  then  how  strange  to  see  this  beautiful  and 
delicate  confession  put  into  so  narrow  and  con- 
strained a  shape!  It  is  the  most  artificial  by  far 
of  all  the  psalms.  The  writer  has  chosen  deliber- 
ately one  of  the  most  cramping  and  confining 
forms  that  could  be  devised.  Each  of  the  eight 
verses  that  form  the  separate  stanzas  begins  with 
the  same  letter  of  the  alphabet,  and  each  of  the 
letters  is  used  in  turn.  Think  of  attempting  to 
do  the  same  in  English — it  could  not  be  done  at 
all.  And  then  in  every  single  verse,  except  in 
one,  where  the  word  has  probably  disappeared  in 
translation,  by  a  mistake,  there  is  a  mention  of 
the  law  of  God.  Infinite  pains  must  have  gone  to 
the  slow  building  of  this  curious  structure  ;  stone 


Psalm  CXIX  129 

by  stone  must  have  been  carved  and  lifted  to  its 
place.  And  yet  the  art  is  so  great  that  I  know 
no  composition  of  the  same  length  that  has  so 
perfect  a  unity  of  mood  and  atmosphere.  There 
is  never  a  false  or  alien  note  struck.  It  is  never 
jubilant  or  contentious  or  assertive — and,  best 
of  all,  it  is  wholly  free  from  any  touch  of  that 
complacency  which  is  the  shadow  of  virtue.  The 
writer  never  takes  any  credit  to  himself  for  his 
firm  adherence  to  the  truth ;  he  writes  rather  as 
one  who  has  had  a  gift  of  immeasurable  value 
entrusted  to  unworthy  hands,  who  hardly  dares 
to  believe  that  it  has  been  granted  him,  and  who 
still  speaks  as  though  he  might  at  any  time  prove 
unfaithful,  as  though  his  weakness  might  sudden- 
ly betray  him,  and  who  therefore  has  little  tempta- 
tion to  exult  in  the  possession  of  anything  which 
his  own  frail  nature  might  at  any  moment  forfeit. 
And  thus,  from  its  humility,  its  sense  of  weak- 
ness and  weariness,  its  consciousness  of  sin  and 
failure,  combined  with  its  deep  apprehension  of 
the  stainless  beauty  of  the  moral  law,  this  lyric 
has  found  its  way  to  the  hearts  of  all  who  find  the 
world  and  temptation  and  fear  too  strong,  all 
who  through  repeated  failure  have  learned  that 
they  cannot  even  be  true  to  what  they  so  patheti- 
9 


130  The  Altar  Fire 

cally  desire  and  admire  ;  who  would  be  brave  and 
vigorous  if  they  could,  but,  as  it  is,  can  only 
hope  to  be  just  led  step  by  step,  helped  over  the 
immediate  difficulty,  past  the  dreaded  moment  ; 
whose  heart  often  fails  them,  and  who  have  little 
of  the  joy  of  God  ;  who  can  only  trust  that,  if 
they  go  astray,  the  mercy  of  God  will  yet  go  out 
to  seek  them  ;  who  cannot  even  hope  to  run  in 
the  way  of  God's  beloved  commandments,  till  He 
has  set  their  heart  at  liberty. 

March  8,  1889. 

I  went  to  see  Darell,  my  old  schoolfellow,  a  few 
days  ago ;  he  wrote  to  say  that  he  would  much 
like  to  see  me,  but  that  he  was  ill  and  unable  to 
leave  home — could  I  possibly  come  to  see  him  ? 

I  have  never  seen  very  much  of  him  since  I  left 
Cambridge;  but  there  I  was  a  good  deal  in  his 
company— and  we  have  kept  up  our  friendship  ever 
since,  in  the  quiet  way  in  which  Englishmen  do 
keep  up  their  friendships,  meeting  perhaps  two  or 
three  times  in  the  year,  exchanging  letters  occa- 
sionally. He  was  not  a  very  intimate  friend — 
indeed,  he  was  not  a  man  who  formed  intimacies  ; 
but  he  was  a  congenial  companion  enough.  He 
was  a  frankly  ambitious  man.  He  went  to  the 
Bar,  where  he  has  done  well ;  he  married  a  wife 


A  Shadow  of  Death  131 

with  some  money  ;  and  I  think  his  ultimate  ambi- 
tion has  been  to  enter  Parliament.  He  told  me, 
when  I  last  saw  him,  that  he  had  now,  he  thought, 
made  money  enough  for  this,  and  that  he  would 
probably  stand  at  the  next  election.  I  have  al- 
ways liked  his  wife,  who  is  a  sensible,  good- 
natured  woman,  with  social  ambitions.  They  live 
in  a  good  house  in  I/)ndon,  in  a  wealthy  sort  of 
way.  I  arrived  to  luncheon,  and  sate  a  little  while 
with  Mrs.  Darell  in  the  drawing-room.  I  became 
aware,  while  I  sate  with  her,  that  there  was  a 
sense  of  anxiety  in  the  air  somehow,  though  she 
spoke  cheerfully  enough  of  her  husband,  saying 
that  he  had  overworked  himself,  and  had  to  lie 
up  for  a  little.  When  he  came  into  the  room  I 
understood.  It  was  not  that  he  was  physically 
much  altered — he  is  a  strongly-built  fellow,  with 
a  sanguine  complexion  and  thick  curly  hair,  now 
somewhat  grizzled  ;  but  I  knew  at  the  first  sight 
of  him  that  matters  were  serious.  He  was  quiet 
and  even  cheerful  in  manner,  but  he  had  a  look 
on  his  face  that  I  had  never  seen  before,  the  look 
of  a  man  whose  view  of  life  had  been  suddenly 
altered,  and  who  is  preparing  himself  for  the  last 
long  journey,  I  knew  instinctively  that  he  be- 
lieved himself  a  doomed  man.  He  said  very  little 
about  himself,  and  I  did  not  ask  him  much  ;  he 


132  The  Altar  Fire 

talked  about  my  books,  and  a  good  deal  about  old 
friends  ;  but  all  with  a  sense,  I  thought,  of  detach- 
ment, as  though  he  were  viewing  everything  over 
a  sort  of  intangible  fence.  After  luncheon,  we 
adjourned  to  his  study  and  smoked.  He  then 
said  a  few  words  about  his  illness,  and  added  that 
it  had  altered  his  plans.  "  I  am  told,'*  he  said, 
'  *  that  I  must  take  a  good  long  holiday — rather  a 
difficult  job  for  a  man  who  cares  a  great  deal 
about  his  work  and  very  little  about  anything 
else ; "  he  added  a  few  medical  details,  from 
which  I  gathered  the  nature  of  his  illness.  Then 
he  went  on  to  talk  of  casual  matters  ;  it  seemed 
to  interest  him  to  discuss  what  had  been  happen- 
ing to  our  school  and  college  friends  ;  but  I  knew, 
without  being  told,  that  he  wished  me  to  under- 
stand that  he  did  not  expect  to  resume  his  place 
in  the  world — and  indeed  I  divined,  by  some  dim 
communication  of  the  spirit,  that  he  thought  my 
visit  was  probably  a  farewell.  But  he  talked  with 
unabated  courage  and  interest,  smiling  where  he 
would  in  old  days  have  laughed,  and  speaking  of 
our  friends  with  more  tenderness  than  was  his 
wont.  Only  once  did  he  half  betray  what  was  in 
his  mind:  **It  is  rather  strange,"  he  said,  "  to 
be  pushed  aside  like  this,  and  to  have  to  recon- 


Two  Experiences  133 

sider  one's  theories.  I  did  not  expect  to  have  to 
pull  up — the  path  lay  plain  before  me — and  now 
it  seems  to  me  as  if  there  were  a  good  many  things 
I  had  lost  sight  of.  Well,  one  must  take  things 
as  they  come,  and  I  don't  think  that  if  I  had  it 
all  to  do  again  I  should  do  otherwise."  He 
changed  the  subject  rather  hurriedly,  and  began 
to  talk  about  my  work.  * '  You  are  quite  a  great 
man  now,"  he  said  with  a  smile  ;  **  I  hear  your 
books  talked  about  wherever  I  go — I  used  to 
wonder  if  you  would  have  had  the  patience  to  do 
anything — you  were  hampered  by  having  no  need 
to  earn  your  living  ;  but  you  have  come  out  on 
the  top. ' '  I  told  him  something  about  my  own 
late  experiences  and  my  difficulty  in  writing. 
He  listened  with  undisguised  interest.  "What 
do  you  make  of  it  ?  "  he  said.  "  Well,"  I  said, 
"you  will  think  I  am  talking  transcendentally, 
but  I  have  felt  often  of  late  as  if  there  were  two 
strains  in  our  life,  two  kinds  of  experience  ;  at 
one  time  we  had  to  do  our  work  with  all  our 
might,  to  get  absorbed  in  it,  to  do  what  little  we 
can  to  enrich  the  world ;  and  then  at  another 
time  it  is  all  knocked  out  of  our  hands,  and  we 
have  to  sit  and  meditate — to  realise  that  we  are 
here  on  sufferance,  that  what  we  can  do  matters 


134  The  Altar  Fire 

very  little  to  any  one — the  same  sort  of  feeling 
that  I  once  had  when  old  Hoskyns,  in  whose 
class  I  was,  threw  an  essay,  over  which  I  had 
taken  a  lot  of  trouble,  into  his  waste-paper  basket 
before  my  eyes  without  even  looking  it  over.  I 
see  now  that  I  had  got  all  the  good  I  could  out 
of  the  essay  by  writing  it,  and  that  the  credit  of 
it  mattered  very  little  ;  but  then  I  simply  thought 
he  was  a  very  disagreeable  and  idle  old  fellow. ' ' 

''Yes,"  he  said,  smiling,  "there  is  something 
in  that ;  but  one  wants  the  marks  as  well — I  have 
always  liked  to  be  marked  for  my  work.  I  am 
glad  you  told  me  that  story,  old  man." 

We  went  on  to  talk  of  other  things,  and  when 
I  rose  to  go,  he  thanked  me  rather  effusivel}^  for 
my  kindness  in  coming  to  see  him.  He  told  me 
that  he  was  shortly  going  abroad,  and  that  if  I 
could  find  time  to  write  he  would  be  grateful  for 
a  letter;  "and  when  I  am  on  my  legs  again," 
he  said,  with  a  smile,  "we  will  have  another 
meeting." 

That  was  all  that  passed  between  us  of  actual 
speech.  Yet  how  much  more  seems  to  have  been 
implied  than  was  said.  I  knew,  as  well  as  if  he 
had  told  me  in  so  many  words,  that  he  did  not 
expect  to  see  me  again ;  that  he  was  in  the  valley 


Courage  135 

of  the  shadow,  and  wanted  help  and  comfort. 
Yet  he  could  not  have  described  to  me  what  was 
in  his  mind,  and  he  would  have  resented  it,  I 
think,  if  I  had  betrayed  any  consciousness  of  my 
knowledge ;  and  yet  he  knew  that  I  knew,  I  am 
sure  of  that. 

The  interview  affected  me  deeply  and  poign- 
antly. The  man's  patience  and  courage  are 
very  great;  but  he  has  lived,  frankly  and  la- 
boriously, for  perfectly  definite  things.  He  never 
had  the  least  sense  of  what  is  technically  called 
religion ;  he  was  strong  and  temperate  by  nature, 
with  a  fine  sense  of  honour ;  loving  work  and  the 
rewards  of  work,  despising  sentiment  and  emo- 
tion— indeed  his  respect  for  me,  of  which  I  was 
fully  conscious,  is  the  respect  he  feels  for  a  senti- 
mental man  who  has  made  sentiment  pay.  It  is 
very  hard  to  see  what  part  the  prospect  of  suffer- 
ing and  death  is  meant  to  play  in  the  life  of  such 
a  man.  It  must  be,  surely,  that  he  has  some- 
thing even  more  real  than  what  he  has  held  to  be 
realities  to  learn  from  the  sudden  snapping  off  of 
life  and  activity.  I  find  myself  filled  with  an 
immense  pity  for  him ;  and  yet  if  my  faith  were  a 
little  stronger  and  purer,  I  should  congratulate 
rather    than    commiserate    him.     And    yet   the 


136  The  Altar  Fire 

thought  of  him  in  his  bewilderment  helps  me 
too,  for  I  see  my  own  life  as  in  a  mirror.  I  have 
received  a  message  of  truth,  the  message  that  the 
accomplishment  of  our  plans  and  cherished  de- 
signs is  not  the  best  thing  that  can  befall  us. 
How  easy  to  see  that  in  the  case  of  another,  how 
hard  to  see  it  in  our  own  case  !  But  it  has  helped 
me  too  to  throw  myself  outside  the  morbid  per- 
plexities in  which  I  am  involved;  to  hold  out 
open  hands  to  the  gift  of  God,  even  though  He 
seems  to  give  me  a  stone  for  bread,  a  stinging 
serpent  for  wholesome  provender,  It  has  taught 
me  to  pray — not  only  for  myself,  but  for  all  the 
poor  souls  who  are  in  the  grip  of  a  sorrow  that 
they  cannot  understand  or  bear. 

March  14,  1889. 
The  question  that  haunts  me,  the  problem  I 
cannot  disentangle,  is  what  is  or  what  ought  our 
purpose  to  be  ?  What  is  our  duty  in  life  ?  Ought 
we  to  discern  a  duty  which  lies  apart  from  our 
own  desires  and  inclinations  ?  The  moralist  says 
that  it  ought  to  be  to  help  other  people;  but 
surely  that  is  because  the  people,  whom  by  some 
instinct  we  deem  the  highest,  have  had  the  irre- 
sistible desire  to  help  others  ?    How  many  people 


Duty  137 

has  one  ever  known  who  have  taken  up  philan- 
thropy merely  from  a  sense  of  rectitude?  The 
people  who  have  done  most  to  help  the  world 
along  have  been  the  people  who  have  had  an 
overwhelming  natural  tenderness,  an  overflowing 
love  for  helpless,  weak,  and  unhappy  people. 
That  is  a  thing  which  cannot  be  simulated.  One 
knows  quite  well,  to  put  the  matter  simply,  the 
extent  of  one' s  own  limitations.  There  are  courses 
of  action  which  seem  natural  and  easy;  others 
which  seem  hard,  but  just  possible;  others  again 
which  are  frankly  impossible.  However  noble  a 
life,  for  instance,  I  thought  the  life  of  a  missionary 
or  of  a  doctor  to  be,  I  could  not  under  any  cir- 
cumstances adopt  the  r61e  of  either.  There  are 
certain  things  which  I  might  force  myself  to  do 
which  I  do  not  do,  and  which  I  practically  know 
I  shall  not  do.  And  the  number  of  people  is 
very  small  who,  when  circumstances  suggest  one 
course,  resolutely  carry  out  another.  The  artistic 
life  is  a  very  hard  one  to  analyse,  because  at  the 
outset  it  seems  so  frankly  selfish  a  life.  One  does 
what  one  most  desires  to  do,  one  develops  one's 
own  nature,  its  faculties  and  powers.  If  one  is 
successful,  the  most  one  can  claim  is  that  one  has 
perhaps  added  a  little  to  the  sum  of  happiness,  of 


138  The  Altar  Fire 

innocent  enjoyment,  that  one  has  perhaps  in- 
creased or  fed  in  a  few  people  the  perception  of 
beauty.  Of  course  the  difficulty  is  increased  by 
the  conventional  belief  that  any  career  is  justified 
by  success  in  that  career.  And  as  long  as  a  man 
attains  a  certain  measure  of  renown  we  do  not 
question  very  much  the  nature  of  his  aims. 

Then,  again,  if  we  put  that  all  aside,  and  look 
upon  life  as  a  thing  that  is  given  us  to  teach  us 
something,  it  is  easy  to  think  that  it  does  not 
matter  very  much  what  we  do ;  we  take  the  line 
of  least  resistance,  and  think  that  we  shall  learn 
our  lesson  somehow. 

It  is  difiicult  to  believe  that  our  one  object 
ought  to  be  to  thwart  all  our  own  desires  and 
impulses,  to  abstain  from  doing  what  we  desire 
to  do,  and  to  force  ourselves  continually  to  do 
what  we  have  no  impulse  to  do.  That  is  a  philo- 
sophical and  stoical  business,  and  would  end  at 
best  in  a  patient  and  courteous  dreariness  of  spirit. 

Neither  does  it  seem  a  right  solution  to  say  : 
'  *  I  will  parcel  out  my  energies — so  much  will 
I  give  to  myself,  so  much  to  others."  It  ought  to 
be  a  larger,  more  generous  business  than  that  ; 
yet  the  people  who  give  themselves  most  freely 
away  too  often  end  by  having  very  little  to  give  ; 


Desired  Harmony  139 

instead  of  having  a  store  of  ripe  and  wise  reflec- 
tion, they  have  generally  little  more  than  an 
ofl&cial  smile,  a  kindly  tolerance,  a  voluble  stream 
of  commonplaces. 

And  then,  too,  it  is  hard  to  see,  to  speak 
candidly,  what  God  is  doing  in  the  matter.  One 
sees  useful  careers  cut  ruthlessly  short,  generous 
qualities  nullified  by  bad  health  or  minute  faults, 
promise  unfulfilled,  men  and  women  bound  in 
narrow,  petty,  uncongenial  spheres,  the  whole 
matter  in  a  sad  disorder.  One  sees  one  man's 
influence  spoilt  by  over-confidence,  by  too  strong 
a  sense  of  his  own  significance,  and  another  man 
made  ineffective  by  diffidence  and  self- distrust. 
The  best  things  of  life,  the  most  gracious  oppor- 
tunities, such  as  love  and  marriage,  cannot  be 
entered  upon  from  a  sense  of  duty,  but  only  from 
an  overpowering  and  instinctive  impulse. 

Is  it  not  possible  to  arrive  at  some  tranquil 
harmony  of  life,  some  self-evolution,  which  should 
at  the  same  time  be  ardent  and  generous  ?  In  my 
own  sad  unrest  of  spirit,  I  seem  to  be  alike  incap- 
able of  working  for  the  sake  of  others  and  work- 
ing to  please  myself  Perhaps  that  is  but  the 
symptom  of  a  moral  disease,  a  malady  of  the 
soul.     Yet  if  that  is  so,  and  if  one  once  feels  that 


I40  The  Altar  Fire 

disease  and  suffering  is  not  a  part  of  the  great  and 
gracious  purpose  of  God — if  it  is  but  a  failure  in 
His  design — the  struggle  is  hopeless.  One  sees 
all  around  one  men  and  women  troubled  by  no 
misgivings,  with  no  certain  aim,  just  doing  what- 
ever the  tide  of  life  impels  them  to  do.  My 
neighbour  here  is  a  man  who  for  years  has  gone 
up  to  town  every  day  to  his  ofl&ce.  He  is  perfectly 
contented,  absolutely  happy.  He  has  made  more 
money  than  he  will  ever  need  or  spend,  and  he 
will  leave  his  children  a  considerable  fortune. 
He  is  kind,  respectable,  upright ;  he  is  considered 
a  thoroughly  enviable  man,  and  indeed,  if  pro- 
sperity and  contentment  are  the  sign  and  seal  of 
God's  approbation,  such  a  man  is  the  highest 
work  of  God,  and  has  every  reason  to  be  an  opti- 
mist. He  would  think  my  questionings  morbid 
and  my  desires  moonshine.  He  is  not  necessarily 
right  any  more  than  I ;  but  his  theory  of  life 
works  out  a  good  deal  better  for  him  than  mine 
for  me. 

Well,  we  drift,  we  drift !  Sometimes  the  sun 
shines  bright  on  the  wave,  and  the  wheeling 
birds  dip  and  hover,  and  our  heart  is  full  of  song. 
But  sometimes  we  plunge  on  rising  billows,  with 
the  wind  wailing,  and  the  rain  pricking  the  sur- 


The  Carlyles  141 

face  with  needle-points  ;  we  are  weary  and  un- 
comforted  ;  and  we  do  not  know  why  we  suffer 
or  why  we  are  glad.  Sometimes  I  have  a  far-off 
hope  that  I  shall  know,  that  I  shall  understand 
and  be  satisfied  ;  but  sometimes,  alas,  I  fear  that 
my  soul  will  flare  out  upon  the  darkness,  and 
know  no  more  either  of  weal  or  woe. 

March  20,  1889. 
I  am  reading  a  great  deal  now  ;  but  I  find  that 
I  turn  naturally  to  books  of  a  sad  intimity — 
books  in  which  are  revealed  the  sorrowful  cares 
and  troubles  of  sensitive  people.  Partly,  I  sup- 
pose, it  is  to  get  the  sense  of  comfort  which 
comes  from  feeling  that  others  have  suffered  too  ; 
but  partly  to  find,  if  I  can,  some  medicine  for 
my  soul,  in  learning  how  others  struggled  out 
of  the  mire.  Thus  I  have  been  reading  Fronde's 
Carlyle  and  Mrs.  Carlyle's  Letters  over  again, 
and  they  have  moved  me  strangely  and  deeply. 
Perhaps  it  is  mostly  that  I  have  felt,  in  these 
dark  months,  drawn  to  the  society  of  two  brave 
people— she  was  brave  in  her  silences,  he  in 
the  way  in  which  he  stuck  doggedly  to  his  work 
—who  each  suffered  so  horribly,  so  imaginatively, 
so  inexplicably,  and,  alas,  it  would  seem,  so  un- 


142  The  Altar  Fire 

necessarily !  Of  course  Carlyle  indulged  his 
moods,  while  Mrs.  Carlyle  fought  against  hers ; 
moreover,  he  had  the  instinct  for  translating 
thoughts,  instantaneously  and  volubly,  into 
vehement  picturesque  speech.  How  he  could 
bite  in  a  picture,  an  ugly,  ill-tempered  one 
enough  very  often,  as  when  he  called  Coleridge  a 
' '  weltering  ' '  man  !  Many  of  his  sketches  are 
mere  Gillray  caricatures  of  people,  seen  through 
bile  unutterable,  exasperated  by  nervous  irrita- 
bility. And  Mrs.  Carlyle  had  a  mordant  wit 
enough.  But  still  both  of  them  had  au  fofid  a 
deep  need  of  love,  and  a  power  of  lavishing  love. 
It  comes  out  in  the  old  man's  whimsical  notes 
and  prefaces  ;  and  indeed  it  is  true  to  say  that  if 
a  person  once  actually  penetrated  into  Carlyle' s 
inner  circle,  he  found  himself  loved  hungrily 
and  devotedly,  and  never  forgotten  or  cast  out. 
And  as  to  Mrs.  Carlyle,  I  suppose  it  was  impos- 
sible to  be  near  her  and  not  to  love  her  !  This 
comes  out  in  glimpses  in  her  sad  pathological  let- 
ters. There  is  a  scene  she  describes,  how  she 
returned  home  after  some  long  and  serious  bout 
of  illness,  when  her  cook  and  housemaid  rushed 
into  the  street,  kissed  her,  and  wept  on  her 
neck  ;  while  two  of  her  men  friends,  Mr.  Cooke 


Fiction  and  Fact  143 

and  Lord  Houghton,  who  called  in  the  course  of 
the  evening,  to  her  surprise  and  obvious  pleasure, 
did  the  very  same.  The  result  on  myself,  after 
reading  the  books,  is  to  feel  myself  one  of  the 
circle,  to  want  to  do  something  for  them,  to  wring 
the  necks  of  the  cocks  who  disturbed  Carlyle's 
sleep  ;  and  sometimes,  alas  !  to  rap  the  old  man's 
fingers  for  his  blind  inconsiderateness  and  selfish- 
ness. I  came  the  other  day  upon  a  passage  in 
a  former  book  of  my  own,  where  I  said  some- 
thing sneering  and  derisive  about  the  pair,  and  I 
felt  deep  shame  and  contrition  for  having  written 
it — and,  more  than  that,  I  felt  a  sort  of  disgust 
for  the  fact  that  I  have  spent  so  much  time  in 
writing  fiction.  Books  like  the  Life  of  Carlyle 
and  Mrs.  Carlyle's  Letters  take  the  wind  out  of 
one's  imaginative  faculties  altogether,  because 
one  is  confronted  with  the  real  stuff  of  life  in 
them.  lyife,  that  hard,  stubborn,  inconclusive, 
inconsistent,  terrible  thing  !  It  is,  of  course,  that 
very  hardness  and  inconclusiveness  that  makes 
one  turn  to  fiction.  In  fiction,  one  can  round  off 
the  comers,  repair  mistakes,  comfort,  idealise, 
smooth  things  down,  make  error  and  weakness 
bear  good  fruit,  choose,  develop  as  one  pleases. 
Not  so  with  life,  where  things  go  from  bad  to 


144  The  Altar  Fire 

worse,  misunderstandings  grow  and  multiply, 
suffering  does  not  purge,  sorrow  does  not  uplift. 
That  is  the  worst  of  fiction,  that  it  deludes  one 
into  thinking  that  one  can  deal  gently  with  life, 
finish  off  the  picture,  arrange  things  on  one's  own 
little  principles  ;  and  then,  as  in  my  own  case, 
life  brings  one  up  against  some  monstrous, 
grievous,  intolerable  fact,  that  one  can  neither 
look  round  or  over,  and  the  scales  fall  from  one's 
eyes.  With  what  courage,  tranquillity,  or  joy  is 
one  to  meet  a  thoroughly  disagreeable  situation  ? 
The  more  one  leans  on  the  hope  that  it  may 
amend,  the  weaker  one  grows ;  the  thing  to 
realise  is  that  it  is  bad,  that  it  is  inevitable, 
that  it  has  arrived,  and  to  let  the  terror  and 
misery  do  their  worst,  soak  into  the  soul  and 
not  run  off  it.  Only  then  can  one  hope  to  be 
different  ;  only  so  can  one  climb  the  weary  lad- 
der of  patience  and  faith. 

March  28,  1889. 
I,ow-hung  ragged  grey  skies,  heaven  smeared 
with  watery  vapours  fleeting,  broken  and  mourn- 
ful, from  the  west — these  above  me,  as  I  stand  by 
the  old  lichened  gate  of  the  high  wind-swept  field 
at  the  top  of  the  wold.      In   front  a  stretch  of 


A  Spring  Evening  145 

rough  common,  the  dark-brown  heather,  the 
young  gorse,  bluish- green,  the  rusty  red  of 
soaked  bracken,  the  pale  ochre-coloured  grass, 
all  blent  into  a  rich  tint  that  pleases  the  eye 
with  its  wild  freshness.  To  the  left,  the  wide 
flat  level  of  the  plain,  with  low  hills  rising  on 
its  verge  ;  to  the  right,  a  pale  pool  of  water  at  the 
bottom  of  a  secret  valley,  reflecting  the  leafless 
bushes  that  fringe  it,  catches  the  sunset  gleam 
that  rises  in  the  west ;  and  then  range  after  range 
of  wolds,  with  pale-green  pastures,  dark  copses, 
fawn-coloured  ploughland,  here  and  there  an 
emerald  patch  of  young  wheat.  The  air  is  fresh, 
soft,  and  fragrant,  laden  with  rain  ;  the  earth 
smells  sweet ;  and  the  wild  woodland  scent  comes 
blowing  to  me  out  of  the  heart  of  the  spinney.  In 
front  of  me  glimmer  the  rough  wheel-tracks  in  a 
grassy  road  that  lead  out  on  to  the  heath,  and  two 
obscure  figures  move  slowly  nearer  among  the 
tufted  gorse.  They  seem  to  me,  those  two  figures, 
charged  with  a  grave  significance,  as  though 
they  came  to  bear  me  tidings,  messengers  bidden 
to  seek  and  find  me,  like  the  men  who  visited 
Abraham  at  the  close  of  the  day. 

As  I  linger,  the  day  grows  darker,  the  colour 
fading  from  leaf  and  blade  ;  bright  points  of  light 


146  The  Altar  Fire 

flash  out  among  the  dark  ridges  from  secluded 
farms,  where  the  evening  lamp  is  lit. 

Sometimes  on  days  like  this,  when  the  moisture 
hangs  upon  the  hedges,  when  the  streams  talk 
hoarsely  to  themselves  in  grassy  channels,  when 
the  road  is  full  of  pools,  one  is  weary,  unstrung 
and  dissatisfied,  faint  of  purpose,  tired  of  labour, 
desiring  neither  activity  nor  rest ;  the  soul  sits 
brooding,  like  the  black  crows  that  I  see  in  the 
leafless  wood  beneath  me,  perched  silent  and 
draggled  on  the  tree- tops,  just  waiting  for  the  sun 
and  the  dry  keen  airs  to  return  ;  but  to-day  it  is 
not  so  ;  I  am  full  of  a  quiet  hope,  an  acquiescent 
tranquillity.  My  heart  talks  gently  to  itself,  as  to 
an  unseen  friend,  telling  its  designs,  its  wishes,  its 
activities.  I  think  of  those  I  hold  dear,  all  the 
world  over ;  I  am  glad  that  they  are  alive,  and 
believe  that  they  think  of  me.  All  the  air  seems 
full  of  messages,  thoughts,  and  confidences,  and 
welcomes  passing  to  and  fro,  binding  souls  to 
each  other,  and  all  to  God.  There  seems  to  be 
nothing  that  one  needs  to  do  to-day  except  to  live 
one's  daily  life  ;  to  be  kind  and  joyful.  To-day 
the  road  of  pilgrimage  lies  very  straight  and  clear 
between  its  fences,  in  an  open  ground,  with  neither 
valley  nor  hill,  no  by-path,  no  turning.     One  can 


The  Pilgrimage  147 

eveu  see  the  gables  and  chimneys  of  some  grave 
house  of  welcome,  * '  a  roof  for  when  the  dark 
hours  begin,"  full  of  pious  company  and  smiling 
maidens.  And  not,  it  seems,  a  false  security  ; 
one  is  not  elated,  confident,  strong  ;  one  knows 
one's  weakness ;  but  I  think  that  the  I^ord  of  the 
land  has  lately  passed  by  with  a  smile,  and  given 
command  that  the  pilgrims  shall  have  a  space  of 
quiet.  These  birds,  these  branching  trees,  have 
not  yet  lost  the  joy  of  His  passing.  There,  along 
the  grassy  tracks.  His  patient  footsteps  went,  how 
short  a  time  ago  !  One  does  not  hope  that  all  the 
journey  will  be  easy  and  untroubled  ;  there  will 
be  fresh  burdens  to  be  borne,  dim  valleys  full  of 
sighs  to  creep  through,  dark  waters  to  wade 
across ;  these  feet  will  stumble  and  bleed  ;  these 
knees  will  be  weary  before  the  end ;  but  to-day 
there  is  no  doubt  about  the  pilgrimage,  no  ques- 
tion of  the  far-off  goal.  The  world  is  sad,  perhaps, 
but  sweet ;  sad  as  the  homeless  clouds  that  drift 
endlessly  across  the  sky  from  marge  to  marge  ; 
sweet  as  the  note  of  the  hidden  bird,  that  rises 
from  moment  to  moment  from  the  copse  beside 
me,  again  and  yet  again,  telling  of  a  little  heart 
that  is  content  to  wait,  and  not  ill-pleased  to  be 
alone  with  its  own  soft  thoughts. 


^        OF  THE     '^P^ 


148  The  Altar  Fire 

April  4,  1889. 

Down  in  the  valley  which  runs  below  the  house 
is  a  mill.  I  passed  it  to-day  at  dusk,  and  I 
thought  I  had  never  seen  so  characteristically 
English  a  scene.  The  wheel  was  silent,  and  the 
big  boarded  walls,  dusted  with  flour,  loomed  up 
solemnly  in  the  evening  light.  The  full  leat 
dashed  merrily  through  the  sluice,  making  holi- 
day, like  a  child  released  from  school.  Behind 
was  the  stack-yard,  for  it  is  a  farm  as  well  as  a 
mill ;  and  in  the  byre  I  heard  the  grunting  of  com- 
fortable pigs,  and  the  soft  pulling  of  the  hay  from 
the  big  racks  by  the  bullocks.  The  fowls  were 
going  to  roost,  fluttering  up  every  now  and  then 
into  the  big  elder-bushes  ;  while  high  above,  in 
the  apple-trees,  I  saw  great  turkeys  settled  pre- 
cariously for  the  night.  The  orchard  was  silent, 
except  for  the  murmur  of  the  stream  that  bounds 
it.  In  the  mill-house  itself  lights  gleamed  in  the 
windows,  and  I  saw  a  pleasant  family-party 
gathered  at  their  evening  meal.  The  whole  scene 
with  its  background  of  sloping  meadows  and  bud- 
ding woods  so  tranquil  and  contented — a  scene 
which  William  Morris  would  have  loved — for 
there  is  a  pleasant  grace  of  antiquity  about  the  old 
house,  a  sense  of  homely  and  solid  life,  and  of  all 


The  Miller  149 

the  family  associations  that  have  gone  to  the  mak- 
ing of  it,  generation  after  generation  leaving  its 
mark  in  the  little  alterations  and  additions  that 
have  met  a  need,  or  even  satisfied  a  pleasant  fancy. 
The  miller  is  an  elderly  man  now,  fond  of  work, 
prosperous,  good-humoured.  His  son  lives  with 
him,  and  the  house  is  full  of  grandchildren.  I  do 
not  say  that  it  puzzles  me  to  divine  what  is  the 
miller's  view  of  life,  because  I  think  I  know  it. 
It  is  to  make  money  honestly,  to  bring  up  his 
grandchildren  virtuously  and  comfortably,  to  en- 
joy his  daily  work  and  his  evening  leisure.  He  is 
never  idle,  never  preoccupied.  He  enjoys  getting 
the  mill  started,  seeing  the  flour  stream  into  the 
sacks,  he  enjoys  going  to  market,  he  enjoys  going 
prosperously  to  church  on  Sundays,  he  enjoys  his 
paper  and  his  pipe.  He  has  no  exalted  ideas,  and 
he  could  not  put  a  single  emotion  into  words,  but 
he  is  thoroughly  honest,  upright,  manly,  kind, 
sensible.  A  perfect  life  in  many  ways  ;  and  yet 
it  is  inconceivable  to  me  that  a  man  should  live 
thus,  without  an  aim,  without  a  hope,  without  an 
object.  He  would  think  my  own  lile  even  more 
inconceivable — that  a  man  could  deliberately  sit 
down  day  after  day  to  construct  a  story  about  im- 
aginary people ;  and  such  respect  as  he  feels  for 


I50  The  Altar  Fire 

me,  is  mainly  due  to  the  fact  that  my  writings 
bring  me  in  a  larger  income  than  he  could  ever 
make  from  his  mill.  But  of  course  he  is  a  man 
who  is  normally  healthy,  and  such  men  as  he  are 
the  props  of  rural  life.  He  is  a  good  master,  he 
sees  that  his  men  do  their  work,  and  are  well 
housed.  He  is  not  generous  exactly,  but  he  is 
neighbourly.  The  question  is  whether  such  as  he 
is  the  proper  type  of  humanity.  He  represents 
the  simple  virtues  at  their  high- water  mark.  He 
is  entirely  contented,  and  his  desires  are  perfectly 
proportioned  to  their  surroundings.  He  seems  in- 
deed to  be  exactly  what  the  human  creature  ought 
to  be.  And  yet  his  very  virtues,  his  sense  of  jus- 
tice and  honesty,  his  sensible  kindliness,  are  the 
outcome  of  civilisation,  and  bear  the  stamp,  in  re- 
ality, of  the  dreams  of  saints  and  sages  and  ideal- 
ists—  the  men  who  felt  that  things  could  be  better, 
and  who  were  made  miserable  by  the  imperfec- 
tions of  the  world.  I  cannot  help  wondering,  in 
a  whimsical  moment,  what  would  have  been  the 
miller's  thoughts  of  Christ,  if  he  had  been  con- 
fronted with  Him  in  the  flesh .  He  would  have 
thought  of  Him  rather  contemptuously,  I  think, 
as  a  bewildering,  unpractical,  emotional  man. 
The  miller  would  not  have  felt  the  appeal  of  un- 


My  Work  151 

selfishness  and  unworldliness,  because  his  ideal  of 
life  is  tranquil  prosperity.  He  would  have  merely 
wondered  why  people  could  not  hold  their  tongues 
and  mind  their  business :  and  yet  he  is  a  model 
citizen,  and  would  be  deeply  annoyed  if  he  were 
told  he  was  not  a  sincere  Christian.  He  accepts 
doctrinal  statements  as  he  would  accept  mathemati- 
cal formulae,  and  he  takes  exactly  as  much  of  the 
Christian  doctrine  as  suits  him.  Now  when  I 
compare  myself  with  the  miller,  I  feel  that,  as  far 
as  human  usefulness  goes,  I  am  far  lower  in  the 
scale.  I  am,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  a  drone 
in  the  hive,  eating  the  honey  I  did  not  make.  I  do 
not  take  my  share  in  the  necessary  labour  of  the 
world,  I  do  not  regulate  a  little  community  of  la- 
bourers with  uprightness  and  kindness,  as  he  does. 
But  still  I  suppose  that  my  more  sensitive  organi- 
sation has  a  meaning  in  the  scale  of  things.  I 
can  not  have  been  made  and  developed  as  I  am, 
outside  of  the  purpose  of  God.  And  yet  my  work 
in  the  world  is  not  that  of  the  passionate  idealist, 
that  kindles  men  with  the  hope  of  bettering 
and  amending  the  world.  What  is  it  that  my 
work  does  ?  It  fills  a  vacant  hour  for  leisurely 
people,  it  gives  agreeable  distraction,  it  furnishes 
some  pleasant  dreams.     The  most  that  I  can  say 


152  The  Altar  Fire 

is  that  I  have  a  wife  whom  I  desire  to  make 
happy,  and  children  whom  I  desire  to  bring  up 
innocently,  purely,  vigorously. 

Must  one's  hopes  and  beliefs  be  thus  tentative 
and  provisional?  Must  one  walk  through  life, 
never  fathoming  the  secret  ?  I  have  myself  abun- 
dance of  material  comfort,  health,  leisure.  I  know 
that  for  one  like  myself,  there  are  hundreds  less 
fortunate.  Yet  happiness  in  this  world  depends 
very  little  upon  circumstances ;  it  depends  far 
more  upon  a  certain  mixture  of  selfishness,  tran- 
quillity, temperance,  bodily  vigour,  and  unimagi- 
nativeness.  To  be  happy,  one  must  be  good- 
humouredly  indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  others, 
and  indisposed  to  forecast  the  possibilities  of  dis- 
aster. The  sadness  which  must  shadow  the  path 
of  such  as  myself  is  the  sadness  which  comes  of 
the  power  to  see  clearly  the  imperfections  of  the 
world,  coupled  with  the  inability  to  see  through  it, 
to  discern  the  purpose  of  it  all.  One  comforts 
oneself  by  the  dim  hope  that  the  desire  will  be 
satisfied  and  the  dream  fulfilled  ;  but  has  one  any 
certainty  of  that  ?  The  temptation  is  to  acquiesce 
in  a  sort  of  gentle  cynicism,  to  take  what  one  can 
get,  to  avoid  as  far  as  possible  all  deep  attach- 
ments, all  profound  hopes,  to  steel  oneself  in  in- 


Rousseau      '  153 

difference.  That  is  what  such  men  as  my  miller 
do  instinctively  ;  meanwhile  one  tries  to  believe 
that  the  melancholy  that  comes  to  such  as  Ham- 
let, the  sadness  of  finding  the  world  unintelligible, 
and  painful,  and  full  of  shadows,  is  a  noble  melan- 
choly, a  superior  sort  of  madness.  Yet  one  is  not 
content  to  bear,  to  suffer,  to  wait ;  one  clutches 
desperately  at  light  and  warmth  and  joy,  and 
alas  !  in  joy  and  sorrow  alike,  one  is  ever  and  in- 
supportably  alone. 

April  %  1889. 

I  have  been  reading  Rousseau  lately,  and  find 
him  a  very  incomprehensible  figure.  The  Con- 
fessions, it  must  be  said,  is  a  dingy  and  sordid 
book.  I  cannot  quite  penetrate  the  motive  which 
induced  him  to  write  it.  It  cannot  have  been 
pure  vanity,  because  he  does  not  spare  himself; 
he  might  have  made  himself  out  a  far  more 
romantic  and  attractive  character,  if  he  had  sup- 
pressed the  shadows  and  heightened  the  lights.  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  it  was  partly  vanity  and 
partly  honesty.  Vanity  was  the  motive  force,  and 
honesty  the  accompanying  mood.  I  do  not  sup- 
pose there  is  any  document  so  transparently  true 
in  existence,  and  we  ought  to  be  thankful  for  that. 


154  The  Altar  Fire 

It  is  customary  to  say  that  Rousseau  had  the  soul 
of  a  lacquey,  by  which  I  suppose  is  meant  that  he 
had  a  gross  and  vulgar  nature,  a  thievish  taste  for 
low  pleasures,  and  an  ill-bred  absence  of  con- 
sideration for  others.  He  had  all  these  qualities 
certainly,  but  he  had  a  great  deal  more.  He  was 
upright  and  disinterested.  He  had  a  noble  dis- 
regard of  material  advantages;  he  had  an  enthu- 
siasm for  virtue,  a  passionate  love  of  humanity,  a 
deep  faith  in  God.  He  was  not  an  intellectual 
man  nor  a  philosopher  ;  and  yet  what  a  ridiculous 
criticism  is  that  which  is  generally  made  upon 
him,  that  his  reasoning  is  bad,  his  knowledge 
scanty,  and  that  people  had  better  read  Hobbes! 
The  very  reason  which  made  Rousseau  so  tre- 
mendous an  influence  was  that  his  point  of  view 
was  poetical  rather  than  philosophical ;  he  was 
not  too  far  removed  from  the  souls  to  which 
he  prophesied.  What  they  needed  was  inspira- 
tion, emotion,  and  sentimental  dogma  ;  these  he 
could  give,  and  so  he  saved  Europe  from  the 
philosophers  and  the  cynics.  Of  course  it  is  a 
deplorable  life,  tormented  by  strong  animal  passion, 
ill-health,  insanity  ;  but  one  tends  to  forget  the 
prevalent  coarseness  of  social  tone  at  that  date, 
not  because  Rousseau  made  any  secret  of  it,  but 


Rousseau  155 

because  none  of  his  contemporaries  dared  to  be 
so  frank.  If  Rousseau  had  struck  out  a  dozen 
episodes  from  the  Confessions  the  result  would 
have  been  a  highly  poetical,  reflective,  charming 
book.  I  can  easily  conceive  that  it  might  have  a 
very  bad  effect  upon  an  ingenuous  mind,  because 
it  might  be  argued  from  what  he  says  that  moral 
lapses  do  not  very  much  matter,  and  that  emotional 
experience  is  worth  the  price  of  some  animalism. 
Still  more  perniciously  it  might  induce  one  to 
believe  that  a  man  may  have  a  deep  sense  of  reli- 
gion side  by  side  with  an  unbridled  sensuality, 
and  that  one  whose  life  is  morally  infamous  may 
yet  be  able  to  quicken  the  moral  temperature  of 
great  nations. 

Some  of  the  critics  of  Rousseau  speak  as  though 
a  man  whose  moral  code  was  so  loose,  and  whose 
practice  was  so  libidinous,  ought  almost  to  have 
held  his  tongue  on  matters  of  high  moral  import. 
But  this  is  a  very  false  line  of  argument.  A  man 
may  see  a  truth  clearly,  even  if  he  cannot  practise 
it ;  and  an  affirmation  of  a  passionate  belief  in 
virtue  is  emphasised  and  accentuated  when  it 
comes  from  the  lips  of  one  who  might  be  tempted 
rather  to  excuse  his  faults  by  preaching  the  irre- 
sistible character  of  evil. 


156  The  Altar  Fire 

To  any  one  who  reads  wisely,  and  not  in  a 
censorious  and  Pharisaical  spirit,  this  sordid  record 
which  is  yet  interspersed  with  things  so  fragrant 
and  beautiful,  may  have  a  sobering  and  uplifting 
effect.  One  sees  a  man  hampered  by  ill-health,  by 
a  temperament  childishly  greedy  of  momentary 
pleasure,  by  irritability,  suspicion,  vanity,  and 
luxuriousness,  again  and  again  expressing  a  deep 
belief  in  unselfish  emotion,  a  passionate  desire  to 
help  struggling  humanity  onward,  a  childlike 
confidence  in  the  goodness  and  tenderness  of  the 
Father  of  all.  Disgust  and  admiration  struggle 
strangely  together.  One  cannot  sympathise  and 
yet  one  dare  not  condemn.  One  feels  a  horrible 
suspicion  that  there  are  dark  and  slimy  corners, 
vile  secrets,  ugly  memories,  in  the  minds  of  hund- 
reds of  seemingly  respectable  people;  the  book 
brings  one  face  to  face  with  the  mystery  of  evil; 
and  yet  through  the  gloom  there  steals  a  silvery 
radiance,  a  far-off  hope,  an  infinite  compassion  for 
all  weakness  and  imperfection,  One  can.hardly 
love  Rousseau,  though  one  does  not  wonder  that 
there  were  many  found  to  do  so;  and  instead  of 
judging  him,  one  cries  out  with  horror  at  the  slime 
of  the  pit  where  he  lay  bound. 


A  Delusion  157 

April  T4,  1889. 

A  delusion  of  which  we  must  beWare  is  the 
delusion  that  we  can  have  a  precise  and  accurate 
knowledge  of  spiritual  things.  This  is  a  delusion 
into  which  the  exponents  of  settled  religions  are 
apt  to  fall.  The  Roman  Catholic,  with  his  belief 
in  the  infallible  Church,  as  the  interpreter  of 
God's  spirit,  which  is  nothing  more  than  a  belief 
in  the  inspiration  of  the  majority,  or  even  a  belief 
in  the  inspiration  of  a  bureaucracy,  is  the  prey 
of  this  delusion.  The  Protestant,  too,  with  his 
legal  creed,  built  up  of  texts  and  precedents,  in 
which  the  argumentative  dicta  of  Apostles  and 
Evangelists  are  as  weighty  and  important  as  the 
words  of  the  Saviour  Himself,  fall  under  this 
delusion.  I  read  the  other  day  a  passage  from 
a  printed  sermon  of  an  orthodox  type,  an  acrid 
outcry  against  lyiberalism  in  religion,  which  may 
illustrate  what  I  mean. 

"To  St.  Paul  and  St.  John,"  said  the  preacher, 
**  the  natural  or  carnal  man  is  hopelessly  remote 
from  God ;  the  same  I^ord  who  came  to  make 
possible  for  man  this  intimate  communion  with 
God  is  careful  to  make  it  clear  that  this  com- 
munion is  only  possible  to  redeemed,  regenerate 
man ;   prior  to  new  birth  into  the  Kingdom  of 


158  The  Altar  Fire 

God,  far  from  being  a  son  of  God,  man  is,  ac- 
cording totlie  Ivord  Himself,  a  child  of  the  devil, 
however  potentially  capable  of  being  translated 
from  death  into  life." 

Such  teaching  is  so  horrible  and  abominable 
that  it  is  hard  to  find  words  to  express  one's 
sense  of  its  shamefulness.  To  attribute  it  to  the 
Christ,  who  came  to  seek  and  save  what  is  lost, 
is  an  act  of  traitorous  wickedness.  If  Christ  had 
made  it  His  business  to  thunder  into  the  ears  of 
the  outcasts,  whom  He  preferred  to  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees  this  appalling  message,  where 
would  His  teaching  be  ?  What  message  of  hope 
would  it  hold  for  the  soul?  Such  a  view  of 
Christianity  as  this  insults  alike  the  soul  and  the 
mind  and  the  heart ;  it  deliberately  insults  God  ; 
the  message  of  Christ  to  the  vilest  human  spirit 
is  that  it  is  indeed,  in  spite  of  all  its  corruption, 
its  falls,  its  shame,  in  very  truth  God's  own 
child  ;  it  calls  upon  the  sinner  to  recognise  it,  it 
takes  for  granted  that  he  feels  it.  The  people 
whom  Christ  denounced  with  indignation  so 
fiery,  so  blasting,  that  it  even  seems  inconsistent 
with  His  perfect  gentleness,  were  the  people  who 
thus  professed  to  know  and  interpret  the  mind  of 
God,  who  bade  the  sinner  believe  that  He  was  a 


A  Perverted  Faith  159 

merciless  judge,  extreme  to  mark  what  is  done 
amiss,  when  the  one  secret  was  that^e  was  the 
tenderest  and  most  loving  of  Fathers.  But  accord- 
ing to  this  preacher's  terrible  doctrine  God  pours 
into  the  world  a  stream  of  millions  of  human  be- 
ings, all  children  of  the  devil,  with  instincts  of  a 
corrupt  kind,  hampered  by  dreadful  inheritances, 
doomed,  from  their  helpless  and  reluctant  birth, 
to  be  sinful  here  and  lost  hereafter,  and  then 
prescribes  to  them  a  hard  and  difficult  path,  be- 
set by  clamorous  guides,  pointing  in  a  hundred 
different  directions,  bidding  them  find  the  intri- 
cate way  to  His  Heart,  or  perish.  The  truth  is 
the  precise  opposite.  The  divine  voice  says  to 
every  man :  **  Hampered  and  sore  hindered  as 
you  are,  you  are  yet  My  dearly  beloved  son  and 
child ;  only  turn  to  Me,  only  open  your  heart  to 
Me,  only  struggle,  however  faintly,  to  be  what 
you  can  desire  to  be,  and  I  will  guide  and  lead 
you  to  Myself;  all  that  is  needed  is  that  your 
heart  should  be  on  My  side  in  the  battle.  Even 
your  sins  matter  little,  provided  that  you  can  say 
sincerely,  *  If  it  were  mine  to  choose  and  ordain, 
I  would  never  willingly  do  evil  again.'  I  know 
better  even  than  3^ou  yourself  know,  your  diffi- 
culties, your  temptations,  your  weaknesses  ;   the 


i6o  The  Altar  Fire 

sorrow  they  bring  upon  you  is  no  dreary  and 
vindictive  ^punishment,  it  is  the  loving  correction 
of  My  hand,  and  will  bring  you  into  peace  yet,  if 
only  you  will  trust  Me,  and  not  despair." 

The  world  is  full  of  dreadful  things,  pains  and 
sorrow  and  miseries,  but  the  worst  of  all  are  the 
dreary  wretchednesses  of  our  own  devising.  The 
old  detestable  doctrine  of  Hell,  the  idea  that  the 
stubborn  and  perverse  spirit  can  defy  God,  and 
make  its  black  choice,  is  simply  an  attempt  to 
glorify  the  strength  of  the  human  spirit  and  to 
belittle  the  I^ove  of  God.  It  denies  the  truth  that 
God,  if  he  chose,  could  show  the  darkest  soul  the 
beauty  of  holiness  in  so  constraining  a  way  that 
the  frail  nature  must  yield  to  the  appeal.  To 
deny  this,  is  to  deny  the  omnipotence  of  the 
Creator.  No  man  would  deliberately  reject  peace 
and  joy,  if  he  could  see  how  to  find  them,  in 
favour  of  feverish  evil  and  ceaseless  suffering.  If 
we  believe  that  God  is  perfect  love,  it  is  incon- 
ceivable that  He  should  make  a  creature  capable 
of  defying  His  utmost  tenderness,  unless  He  had 
said  to  Himself,  ' '  I  will  make  a  poor  wretch  who 
shall  defy  Me,  and  he  shall  sufier  endlessly  and 
mercilessly  in  consequence."  The  truth  is  that 
God's  Omnipotence  is  limited  by  His  Omnipo- 


The  Mystery  of  the  Mysteries  i6i 

tence  ;  He  could  not,  for  instance,  abolish  Him- 
self, nor  create  a  power  that  should  be  greater 
than  He.  But  if  He  indeed  can  give  to  evil  such 
vitality  that  it  can  defy  Him  for  ever,  then  He  is 
creating  a  power  that  is  stronger  than  Himself. 

While  the  mystery  of  evil  is  unexplained,  we 
must  all  be  content  to  know  that  we  do  not 
know ;  for  the  thing  is  insoluble  by  human 
thought.  If  God  be  all -pervading,  all-in-all,  it  is 
impossible  to  conceive  anything  coming  into  being 
alien  to  Himself,  within  Himself  If  He  created 
spirits  able  to  choose  evil,  He  must  have  created 
the  evil  for  them  to  choose,  for  a  man  could  not 
choose  what  did  not  exist ;  if  a  man  can  defy 
God,  God  must  have  given  him  the  thought  of 
defiance,  for  no  thought  can  enter  the  mind  of 
man  not  permitted  by  God. 

With  this  mystery  unsolved,  we  cannot  pretend 
to  any  knowledge  of  spiritual  things  ;  all  that 
we  can  do  is  to  recognise  that  the  principle  of 
lyove  is  stronger  than  the  principle  of  evil, 
and  cling  so  far  as  we  can  cling  to  the  former. 
But  to  set  ourselves  up  to  guide  and  direct  other 
men,  as  the  preacher  did  whose  words  I  have 
quoted,  is  to  set  oneself  in  the  place  of  God,  and 
is  a   detestable   tyranny.     Only   by  our  innate 


1 62  The  Altar  Fire 

sense  of  Justice  and  lyove  can  we  apprehend  God 
at  all ;  and  thus  we  are  safe  in  this,  that  when- 
ever we  find  any  doctrine  preached  by  any  human 
being  which  insults  our  sense  of  justice  and  love, 
we  may  gladly  reject  it,  saying  that  at  least  we 
will  not  believe  that  God  gives  us  the  power,  on 
the  one  hand,  to  recognise  our  highest  and  truest 
instincts,  and  on  the  other  directs  us  to  outrage 
them.  Such  teaching  as  this  we  can  infallibl}^ 
recognise  as  a  human  perversion  and  not  as  a 
divine  message  ;  and  we  may  thankfully  and 
gratefully  believe  that  the  obstacles  and  diflS- 
culties,  the  temptations  and  troubles,  which  seem 
to  be  strewn  so  thickly  in  our  path,  are  to  de- 
velop rather  than  to  thwart  our  strivings  after 
good,  and  assuredly  designed  to  minister  to  our 
ultimate  happiness,  rather  than  to  our  ultimate 
despair. 

ApHl  25,  1889. 
I  found  to-day  on  a  shelf  a  Manual  of  Prepara- 
tion for  Holy  Communion,  which  was  given  me 
when  I  was  confirmed.  I  stood  a  long  time  read- 
ing it,  and  little  ghosts  seemed  to  rustle  in  its 
pages.  How  well  I  remember  using  it,  diligently 
and  carefully,  trying  to  force  myself  into  the  atti- 


The  Meaning  of  Sin  163 

tude  of  mind  that  it  inculcated,  and  humbly  and 
sincerely  believing  myself  wicked,  reprobate, 
stony-hearted,  because  I  could  not  do  it  success- 
fully. Shall  I  make  a  curious  confession  ?  From 
quite  early  days,  the  time  of  first  waking  in  the 
morning  has  been  apt  to  be  for  me  a  time  of  men- 
tal agitation  ;  any  unpleasant  and  humiliating 
incident,  any  disagreeable  prospect,  have  always 
tended  to  dart  into  my  brain,  which,  unstrung 
and  weakened  by  sleep,  has  often  been  disposed 
to  view  things  with  a  certain  poignancy  of  dis- 
tress at  that  hour — a  distress  which  I  always 
knew  would  vanish  the  moment  I  felt  my  feet  on 
the  carpet.  I  used  to  take  advantage  of  this  to 
use  my  Manual  at  that  hour,  because  by  that  I 
secured  a  deeper  intensity  of  repentance,  and  I 
have  often  succeeded  in  inducing  a  kind  of  tearful 
condition  by  those  means,  which  I  knew  perfectly 
well  to  be  artificial,  but  which  yet  seemed  to 
comply  with  the  rules  of  the  process. 

The  kind  of  repentance  indicated  in  the  book 
as  appropriate  was  a  deep  abasement,  a  horror 
and  a  hatred  of  one's  sinful  propensities  ;  and  the 
language  used  seems  to  me  now  not  only  hollow 
and  meaningless,  but  to  insult  the  dignity  of  the 
soul,  and  to  be  indeed  a  profound  confession  of  a 


1 64  The  Altar  Fire 

want  of  confidence  in  the  methods  and  purposes 
of  God.  Surely  the  right,  attitude  is  rather  a 
manly,  frank,  and  hopeful  co-operation  with  Gk^d, 
than  a  degraded  kind  of  humiliation.  One  was 
invited  to  contemplate  God's  detestation  of  sin, 
His  awful  and  stainless  holiness.  How  unreal, 
how  utterly  false  !  It  is  no  more  reasonable  than 
to  inculcate  in  human  beings  a  sense  of  His  ha- 
tred of  weakness,  of  imperfection,  of  disease,  of 
suffering.  One  might  as  well  say  that  God's 
courage  and  beauty  were  so  perfect  that  He  had 
an  impatient  loathing  for  anything  timid  or  ugly. 
If  one  said  that  being  perfect  He  had  an  infinite 
pity  for  imperfection,  that  would  be  nearer  the 
truth — but,  even  so,  how  far  away  !  To  believe 
in  His  perfect  love  and  benevolence,  one  must 
also  believe  that  all  shortcomings,  all  tempta- 
tions, all  sufferings,  somehow  emanate  from  Him  ; 
that  they  are  educative,  and  have  an  intense  and 
beautiful  significance — that  is  what  one  strug- 
gles, how  hardly,  to  believe  !  Those  childish  sins, 
they  were  but  the  expression  of  the  nature  one 
received  from  His  hand,  that  wilful,  pleasure- 
loving,  timid,  fitful  nature,  which  yet  always 
desired  the  better  part,  if  only  it  could  compass 
it,  choose  it,  love  it.     To  hate  one's  nature  and 


A  Difficult  Compromise       165 

temperament  and  disposition,  how  impossible, 
unless  one  also  hated  the  God  who  had  bestowed 
them  !  And  then,  too,  how  inextricably  inter- 
twined !  The  very  part  of  one's  soul  that  made 
one  peace-loving,  affectionate,  trustful  was  the 
very  thing  that  led  one  into  temptation.  The 
very  humility  and  diffidence  that  made  one  hate 
to  seem  to  be  superior  to  others  was  the  occasion 
of  falling.  The  religion  recommended  was  a 
religion  of  scrupulous  saints  and  self-torturing 
ascetics ;  and  the  result  of  it  was  to  make  one,  as 
experience  widened  and  deepened,  mournfully 
indifferent  to  an  ideal  which  seemed  so  utterly 
out  of  one's  reach.  It  is  very  difficult  to  make 
the  right  compromise.  On  the  one  hand,  there 
is  the  sense  of  moral  responsibility  and  effort, 
which  one  desires  to  cultivate ;  on  the  other 
hand,  truth  compels  us  to  recognise  our  limita- 
tions, and  to  confess  boldly  the  fact  that  moral 
improvement  is  a  very  difficult  thing.  The  ques- 
tion is  whether,  in  dealing  with  other  people,  we 
will  declare  what  we  believe  to  be  the  truth, 
or  whether  we  will  tamper  with  the  truth  for 
a  good  motive.  Ought  we  to  pretend  that 
we  think  a  person  morally  responsible  and 
morally    culpable,     when    we    believe    that    he 


1 66  The  Altar  Fire 

is    neither,   for    the  sake  of  trying  to  improve 
him? 

My  own  practice  now  is  to  waste  as  little  time 
as  possible  in  ineflfectual  regrets,  but  to  keep  alive 
as  far  as  I  can  in  my  heart  a  hope,  a  desire,  that 
God  will  help  to  bring  me  nearer  to  the  ideal  that 
I  can  perceive  and  cannot  reach.  To-day,  turning 
over  the  pages  of  the  old  Manual,  with  its  fan- 
tastic strained  phrases  staring  at  me  from  the 
page,  I  cannot  help  wishing  that  some  wise  and 
tender  person  had  been  able  to  explain  to  me  the 
conditions  as  I  now  see  them.  Probably  the 
thing  was  incommunicable;  one  must  learn  for 
oneself  both  one's  bitterness  and  one's  joy. 

May  2,  1889. 
It  sometimes  happens  to  me — I  suppose  it  hap- 
pens to  every  one — to  hear  some  well-meaning 
person  play  or  sing  at  a  party.  I^ast  night,  at 
the  Simpsons',  a  worthy  young  man,  who  was 
staying  there,  sang  some  Schubert  songs  in  a 
perfectly  correct,  weak,  inexpressive  voice,  ac- 
companying himself  in  a  wooden  and  inanimate 
fashion — the  whole  thing  might  have  been  turned 
out  by  a  machine.  I  was,  I  suppose,  in  a  fretful 
mood.      ''Good  God!"    I  thought   to  myself. 


The  Song  167 

*'what  is  the  meaning  of  this  woful  perform- 
ance?— a  party  of  absurd  dressed- up  people,  who 
have  eaten  and  drunk  too  much,  sitting  in  a 
circle  in  this  hot  room  listening  gravely  to  this 
lugubrious  performance !  And  this  is  the  best 
that  Schubert  can  do  !  This  is  the  real  Schubert ! 
Here  have  I  been  all  my  life  pouring  pints  of 
subjective  emotion  into  this  dreary  writer  of  songs, 
believing  that  I  was  stirred  and  moved,  when  it 
was  my  own  hopes  and  aspirations  all  along  which 
I  was  stuffing  into  this  conventional  vehicle,  just 
as  an  ecclesiastical  person  puts  his  emotion  into 
the  grotesque  repetitions  of  a  liturgy. ' '  I  thought 
to  myself  that  I  had  made  a  discovery,  and  that 
all  was  vanity.  Well,  we  thanked  the  singer 
gravely  enough,  and  went  on,  smiling  and  grim- 
acing, to  talk  local  gossip.  A  few  minutes  later, 
a  young  girl,  very  shy  and  painfully  ingenuous, 
was  hauled  protesting  to  the  piano.  I  could  see 
her  hands  tremble  as  she  arranged  her  music, 
and  the  first  chords  she  struck  were  halting  and 
timid.  Then  she  began  to  sing — it  was  some 
simple  old-fashioned  song — what  had  happened  ? 
the  world  was  somehow  different ;  she  had  one  of 
those  low,  thrilling  voices,  charged  with  utterly 
inexplicable  emotion,  haunted  with  old  mysterious 


1 68  The  Altar  Fire 

echoes  out  of  some  region  of  dreams,  so  near  and 
yet  so  far  away.  I  do  not  think  that  the  girl 
had  any  great  intensity  of  mind,  or  even  of  soul, 
neither  was  she  a  great  performer;  but  there  was 
some  strange  and  beautiful  quality  about  the 
voice,  that  now  rose  clear  and  sustained,  while 
the  accompaniment  charged  and  tinged  the  pure 
notes  with  glad  or  mournful  visions,  like  wine 
poured  into  water;  now  the  voice  fell  and  lin- 
gered, like  a  clear  stream  among  rocks,  pathetic, 
appealing,  stirring  a  deep  hunger  of  the  spirit, 
and  at  the  same  time  hinting  at  a  hope, — at  a  se- 
cret almost  within  one's  grasp.  How  can  one  find 
words  to  express  a  thing  so  magical,  so  inex- 
pressible? But  it  left  me  feeling  as  though  to 
sing  thus  was  the  one  thing  worth  doing  in  the 
world,  because  it  seemed  to  interpret,  to  reveal, 
to  sustain,  to  console — it  was  as  though  one 
opened  a  door  in  a  noisy,  dusty  street,  and  saw 
through  it  a  deep  and  silent  glen,  with  woodlands 
stooping  to  a  glimmering  stream,  with  a  blue 
stretch  of  plain  beyond,  and  an  expanse  of  sunnj^ 
seas  on  the  rim  of  the  sky. 

I  have  had  similar  experiences  before.  I  have 
looked  in  a  gallery  at  picture  after  picture — 
bright,  soulless,  accomplished  things— and  asked 


The  Joy  of  Art  169 

myself  how  it  was  possible  for  men  and  women 
to  spend  their  time  so  elaborately  to  no  purpose ; 
and  then  one  catches  sight  of  some  little  sketch — 
a  pool  in  the  silence  of  high  summer,  the  hot  sun 
blazing  on  tall  trees  full  of  leaf,  and  rich  water- 
plants,  with  a  single  figure  in  a  moored  boat, 
musing  dreamily ;  and  at  once  one  is  transported 
into  a  region  of  thrilled  wonder.  What  is  it  all 
about  ?  What  is  this  sudden  glimpse  into  a  life 
so  rich  and  strange  ?  In  what  quiet  country  is  it 
all  enacted,  what  land  of  sweet  visions  ?  What 
do  the  tall  trees  and  the  sleeping  pool  hide  from 
me,  and  in  what  romantic  region  of  joy  and  sad- 
ness does  the  dreamer  muse  for  ever,  in  the  long 
afternoon,  so  full  of  warmth  and  fragrance  and 
murmurous  sound  ?  That  is  the  joy  of  art,  of  the 
symbol — that  it  remains  and  rests  within  itself 
in  a  world  that  seems,  for  a  moment,  more  real 
and  true  than  the  clamorous  and  obtrusive  world 
we  move  in. 

It  is  so  all  along  the  line — the  hard  and  soulless 
art  of  technique  and  rule,  of  tradition  and  precept, 
however  accomplished,  however  perfect  it  is,  is 
worth  nothing  ;  it  is  only  another  dreary  form 
of  labour,  unless  through  some  faculty  of  the 
spirit,  some  vital  intensity,  or  even  some  inex- 


I70  The  Altar  Fire 

plicable  felicity,  not  comprehended,  not  designed, 
not  intended  by  tlie  artist,  it  has  this  remote  and 
suggestive  quality.  And  thus  suddenly,  in  the 
midst  of  this  weary  beating  of  instruments,  this 
dull  laying  of  colour  by  colour,  of  word  by  word, 
there  breaks  in  the  awful  and  holy  presence ;  and 
then  one  feels,  as  I  have  said,  that  this  thrill,  this 
message,  this  oracle,  is  the  one  thing  in  the  world 
worth  striving  after,  and  that  indeed  one  may 
forgive  all  the  dull  efforts  of  those  who  cannot 
attain  it,  because  perhaps  they  too  have  felt  the 
call,  and  have  thrown  themselves  into  the  eternal 
quest. 

And  it  is  true  too  of  life  ;  one  is  brought  near 
to  many  people,  and  one  asks  oneself  in  a  chilly 
discomfort  what  is  the  use  of  it  all,  living  thus 
in  hard  and  futile  habits,  on  dull  and  conventional 
lines  ;  and  then  again  one  is  suddenly  confronted 
by  some  personality,  rich  in  hope  and  greatness, 
touching  the  simplest  acts  of  life  with  an  un- 
earthly light,  making  them  gracious  and  beautiful, 
and  revealing  them  as  the  symbols  of  some  pure 
and  high  mystery.  Sometimes  this  is  revealed 
by  a  word,  sometimes  by  a  glance  ;  perfectly  vir- 
tuous, capable,  successful  people  may  miss  it; 
humble,  simple,  quiet  people  may  have  it.     One 


The  Art  of  Living  171 

cannot  analyse  it  or  describe  it;  but  one  has 
instantaneously  a  sense  that  life  is  a  thing  of 
large  issues  and  great  hopes ;  that  every  action 
and  thought,  however  simple  or  commonplace, 
may  be  touched  with  this  large  quality  of  interest, 
of  significance.  It  is  a  great  happiness  to  meet 
such  a  person,  because  one  goes  in  the  strength 
of  that  heavenly  meat  many  days  and  nights, 
knowing  that  life  is  worth  living  to  the  uttermost, 
and  that  it  can  all  be  beautiful  and  lofty  and 
gracious  ;  but  the  way  to  miss  it,  to  lose  that  fine 
sense,  is  to  have  some  dull  and  definite  design  of 
one's  own,  which  makes  one  treat  all  the  hours 
in  which  one  cannot  pursue  it,  but  as  the  dirt  and 
debris  of  a  quarry.  One  must  not,  I  see,  wait  for 
the  golden  moments  of  life,  because  there  are  no 
moments  that  are  not  golden,  if  one  can  but 
pierce  into  their  essence.  Yet  how  is  one  to 
realise  this,  to  put  it  into  practice?  I  have  of 
late,  in  my  vacuous  mood,  fallen  into  the  dark 
error  of  thinking  of  the  weary  hours  as  of  things 
that  must  be  just  lived  through,  and  endured, 
and  beguiled,  if  possible,  until  the  fire  again  fall. 
But  life  is  a  larger  and  a  nobler  business  than 
that ;  and  one  learns  the  lesson  sooner,  if  one 
takes  the  suffering  home  to  one's  soul,  not  as  a 


172  The  Altar  Fire 

tedious  interlude,  but  as  the  very  melody  and 
march  of  life  itself,  even  though  it  crash  into  dis- 
cords, or  falter  in  a  sombre  monotony. 

The  point  is  that  when  one  seems  to  be  playing 
a  part  to  one's  own  satisfaction,  when  one  appears 
to  oneself  to  be  brilliant,  suggestive,  inspiriting, 
and  genial,  one  is  not  necessarily  ministering  to 
other  people  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  when 
one  is  dull,  troubled,  and  anxious,  out  of  heart 
and  discontented,  one  may  have  the  chance  of 
making  others  happier.  Here  is  a  whimsical 
instance ;  in  one  of  my  dreariest  days — I  was  in 
lyondon  on  business— I  sate  next  to  an  old  friend, 
generally  a  very  lively,  brisk,  and  cheerful  man, 
who  appeared  to  me  strangely  silent  and  de- 
pressed. I  led  him  on  to  talk  freely,  and  he  told 
me  a  long  tale  of  anxieties  and  cares  ;  his  health 
was  unsatisfactory,  his  plans  promised  ill.  In 
trying  to  paint  a  brighter  picture,  to  reassure  and 
encourage  him,  I  not  only  forgot  my  own  troubles, 
but  put  some  hope  into  him.  We  had  met,  two 
tired  and  dispirited  men,  we  went  away  cheered 
and  encouraged,  aware  that  we  were  not  each  of 
us  the  only  sufferer  in  the  world  and  that  there 
were  possibilities  still  ahead  of  us  all,  nay,  in  our 
grip,  if  we  only  were  not  blind  and  forgetful. 


The  Design  173 

May  8,  1889. 

I  saw  the  other  day  a  great  artist  working  on  a 
picture  in  its  initial  stages.  There  were  a  few 
lines  of  a  design  roughly  traced,  and  there  was  a 
little  picture  beside  him,  where  the  scheme  was 
roughly  worked  out ;  but  the  design  itself  was 
covered  with  strange  wild  smears  of  flaring,  furi- 
ous colour,  flung  crudely  upon  the  canvas.  "I 
find  it  impossible  to  believe,"  I  said, — "forgive 
me  for  speaking  thus — that  these  ragged  stains 
and  splashes  of  colour  can  ever  be  subdued  and 
harmonised  and  co-ordinated.'*  The  great  man 
smiled.  **  What  would  you  have  said,  I  wonder,'* 
he  replied,  ''if  you  had  seen,  as  I  once  did,  a 
picture  of  Rossetti's  in  an  early  stage,  with  the 
face  and  arms  of  one  of  his  strange  and  mysteri- 
ous figures  roughly  painted  in  in  the  brightest 
ultramarine?  Many  of  these  fantastic  scraps  of 
colour  will  disappear  altogether  from  the  eye, 
just  lending  tone  to  something  which  is  to  be 
superimposed  upon  them." 

I  have  since  reflected  that  this  makes  a  beauti- 
ful parable  of  our  lives.  Some  element  comes 
into  our  experience,  some  suffering,  some  anxiety, 
and  we  tend  to  say  impatiently,  **  Well,  whatever 
happens,  this  at  least  can   never  appear  just  or 


174  The  Altar  Fire 

merciful."  But  God,  like  a  wise  and  perfect 
artist,  foresees  the  end  in  the  beginning.  We 
who  live  in  time  and  space,  can  merely  see  the 
rough,  crude  tints  flung  fiercely  down,  till  the 
thing  seems  nothing  but  a  frantic  patchwork  of 
angry  hues ;  but  God  sees  the  blending  and  the 
softening  ;  how  the  soft  tints  of  face  and  hand,  of 
river  and  tree,  will  steal  over  the  coarse  back- 
ground, and  gain  their  strength  and  glory  from 
the  hidden  stains.  Perhaps  we  have  sometimes 
the  comfort  of  seeing  how  some  old  and  ugly  ex- 
perience melted  into  and  strengthened  some  soft, 
bright  quality  of  heart  or  mind.  Staring  mourn- 
fully as  we  do  upon  the  tiny  circumscribed  space 
of  life,  we  cannot  conceive  how  the  design  will 
work 'itself  out ;  but  the  day  will  come  when  we 
shall  see  it,  too ;  and  perhaps  the  best  moments 
of  life  are  those  when  we  have  a  secret  inkling  of 
the  process  that  is  going  so  slowly  and  surely 
forward,  as  the  harsh  lines  and  hues  become  the 
gracious  lineaments  of  some  sweet  face,  and 
from  the  glaring  patch  of  hot  colour  is  revealed 
the  remote  and  shining  expanse  of  a  sunlit  sea. 

May  14,  1889. 
There   used    to   be    a    favourite    subject    for 


The  Divine  Sculpture        175 

scholastic  disputation  whether  Hercules  is  vi  the 
marble.  The  image  is  that  of  the  sculptor,  who 
sees  the  statue  lie,  so  to  speak,  imbedded  in  the 
marble  block,  and  whose  duty  it  is  to  carve  it, 
neither  cutting  too  deep  nor  too  shallow,  so  that 
the  perfect  form  is  reveale'S.  The  idea  of  the  dis- 
putation is  the  root-idea  of  idealistic  philosophy. 
That  each  man  is,  as  it  were,  a  block  of  marble  in 
which  the  ideal  man  is  buried.  The  purpose  of 
the  educator  ought  to  be  to  cut  the  form  out, 
nspiHOTtteiv^  as  Plato  has  it. 

What  a  lofty  and  beautiful  thought  ?  To  feel 
about  oneself  that  the  perfect  form  is  there,  and 
that  the  experience  of  life  is  the  process  of  cutting 
it  out — a  process  full  of  pain,  perhaps,  as  the 
great  splinters  and  flakes  fly  and  drop — a  rough, 
brutal  business  it  seems  at  first,  the  hewing  oflF 
great  masses  of  stone,  so  firmly  compacted,  fused, 
and  concreted  together.  At  first  it  seems  un- 
intelligible enough ;  but  the  dints  become 
minuter  and  minuter,  here  a  grain  and  there  an 
atom,  till  the  smooth  and  shapely  limbs  begin  to 
take  shape.  At  first  it  seems  a  mere  bewildered 
loss,  a  sharp  pang  as  one  parts  with  what  seems 
one' s  very  self.  How  long  before  the  barest  struc- 
ture becomes  visible  ?  but  when  one  once  gets  a 


1 76  The  Altar  Fire 

dim  inkling  of  what  is  going  on,  as  the  stubborn 
temper  yields,  as  the  face  takes  on  its  noble 
frankness,  and  the  shapely  limbs  emerge  in  all 
the  glory  of  free  line  and  curve,  how  gratefully 
and  vehemently  one  co-operates,  how  little  a  thing 
the  endurance  of  mere  pain  becomes  by  the  side  of 
the  consciousness  that  one  is  growing  into  the 
likeness  of  the  divine. 

May  23,  1889. 

When  Goethe  was  writing  Werther  he  wrote  to 
his  friend  Kestner,  "I  am  working  out  my  own 
situation  in  art,  for  the  consolation  of  gods  and 
men."  That  is  a  fine  thing  to  have  said,  proceed- 
ing from  so  sublime  an  egoism,  so  transcendent 
a  pride,  that  it  has  hardly  a  disfiguring  touch  of 
vanity  about  it.  He  did  not  add  that  he  was  also 
working  in  the  situation  of  his  friend  Kestner, 
and  Kestner' s  wife,  Charlotte  ;  though  when  they 
objected  to  having  been  thus  used  as  material, 
Goethe  apologised  profusely,  and  in  the  same 
breath  told  them,  somewhat  royally,  that  they 
ought  to  be  proud  to  have  been  thus  honoured. 
But  that  is  the  reason  why  one  admires  Goethe 
so  much  and  worships  him  so  little.  One  admires 
him  for  the  way  in  which  he  strode  ahead,  turn- 


Ethical  Standards  177 

ing  corner  after  comer  in  the  untravelled  road  of 
art,  with  such  insight,  such  certainty,  interpreting 
and  giving  form  to  the  thought  of  the  world  ;  but 
one  does  not  worship  him,  because  he  had  no 
tenderness  or  care  for  humanity.  He  knew 
whither  he  was  bound,  but  he  did  not  trouble 
himself  about  his  companions.  The  great  leaders 
of  the  world  are  those  who  have  said  to  others, 
"  Come  with  me— let  us  find  light  and  peace  to- 
gether !  " — But  Goethe  said,  "  Follow  me  if  you 
can  !"  Some  one,  writing  of  that  age,  said  that 
it  was  a  time  when  men  had  immense  and  far- 
reaching  desires,  but  feeble  wills.  They  lost 
themselves  in  the  melancholy  of  Hamlet  and 
luxuriated  in  their  own  sorrows.  That  was  not 
the  case  with  Goethe  himself ;  there  never  was 
an  artist  who  was  less  irresolute. 

One  of  the  reasons,  I  think,  why  we  are  weak 
in  art,  at  the  present  time,  is  because  we  refer 
everything  to  conventional  ethical  standards. 
We  are  always  arraigning  people  at  the  bar  of 
morality,  and  what  we  judge  them  mainly  by  is 
their  strength  or  weakness  of  will.  Blake  thought 
differently.  He  always  maintained  that  men 
would  be  judged  for  their  intellectual  and  artistic 
perception,  by  their  good  or  bad  taste. 


178  The  Altar  Fire 

But  surely  it  is  all  a  deep-seated  mistake  ;  one 
might  as  well  judge  people  for  being  tall  or  short, 
ugly  or  beautiful.  The  only  thing  for  which  I 
think  most  people  would  consent  to  be  judged, 
which  is  after  all  what  matters,  is  whether  they 
have  yielded  consciously  to  mean,  prudent,  timid, 
conventional  motives  in  life.  It  is  not  a  question 
of  success  or  failure  ;  it  is  rather  whether  one  has 
acted  largely,  freely,  generously,  or  whether  one 
has  acted  politely,  timidly,  prudently. 

In  the  Gospel,  the  two  things  for  which  it  seems 
to  be  indicated  that  men  will  be  judged  are, 
whether  they  have  been  kind,  and  whether  they 
have  improved  upon  what  has  been  given  them. 
And  therefore  the  judgment  seems  to  depend  ra- 
ther upon  what  men  desire  than  upon  what  they 
effect,  upon  attitude  rather  than  upon  perform- 
ance. But  it  is  all  a  great  mystery,  because  no 
amount  of  desiring  seems  to  give  us  what  we  de- 
sire. The  two  plain  duties  are  to  commit  our- 
selves to  the  Power  that  made  us,  and  to  desire 
to  become  what  He  would  have  us  become  ;  and 
one  must  also  abstain  from  any  attempt  to  judge 
other  people— that  is  the  unpardonable  sin. 

In  art,  then,  a  man  does  his  bestif,  like  Goethe, 
he  works  his  own  situation  into  art  for  the  conso- 


Consolation  179 

lation  of  gods  and  men.  His  own  situation  is  the 
only  thing  he  can  come  near  to  perceiving  ;  and  if 
he  draws  it  faithfully  and  beautifully,  he  consoles 
and  he  encourages.  That  is  the  best  and  noblest 
thing  he  can  do,  if  he  can  express  or  depict  any- 
thing which  may  make  other  men  feel  that  they 
are  not  alone,  that  others  are  treading  the  same 
path,  in  sunshine  or  cloud  ;  anything  which  may 
help  others  to  persevere,  to  desire,  to  perceive. 
The  worst  sorrows  in  life  are  not  its  losses  and 
misfortunes,  but  its  fears.  And  when  Goethe  said 
that  it  was  for  the  consolation  of  gods  as  well  as  of 
men,  he  said  a  sublime  thing,  for  if  we  believe  that 
God  made  and  loved  us,  may  we  not  sympathise 
with  Him  for  our  blindness  and  hopelessness,  for  all 
the  sad  sense  of  injustice  and  perplexity  that  we 
feel  as  we  stumble  on  our  way  ;  all  the  accusing 
cries,  all  the  despairing  groans?  Do  not  such 
things  wound  the  heart  of  God  ?  And  if  a  man  can 
be  brave  and  patient,  and  trust  Him  utterly,  and 
bid  others  trust  Him,  is  He  not  thereby  consoled  ? 
In  these  dark  months,  in  which  I  have  suffered 
much,  there  rises  at  times  in  my  heart  a  strong  in- 
tuition that  it  is  not  for  nothing  that  I  suffer.  I 
cannot  divine  whom  it  is  to  benefit,  or  how  it  is  to 
benefit  any  one.     One  thing  indeed  saddens  me, 


i8o  The  Altar  Fire 

and  that  is  to  reflect  that  I  have  often  allowed  the 
record  of  old  sadnesses  to  heighten  my  own  sense 
of  luxurious  tranquillity  and  security.  Not  so  will 
I  err  again.  I  will  rather  believe  that  a  mighty 
price  is  being  paid  for  a  mightier  joy,  that  we  are 
not  astray  in  the  wilderness  out  of  the  way,  but 
that  we  are  rather  a  great  and  loving  company, 
guided  onward  to  some  far-off  city  of  God,  with 
infinite  tenderness,  and  a  love  so  great  that  we 
cannot  even  comprehend  its  depth  and  aiuJ  its 
intensity. 

I  sit,  as  I  write,  in  my  quiet  room,  the  fragrant 
evening  air  floating  in,  surrounded  by  all  the  be- 
loved familiar  things  that  have  made  my  life  sweet, 
easy,  and  delightful — books  and  pictures,  that  have 
brought  me  so  many  messages  of  beauty.  I  hear 
the  voice  of  Maud  overhead — she  is  telling  the 
children  a  story,  and  I  hear  their  voices  break  out 
every  now  and  then  into  eager  questions.  Yet 
in  ttie  midst  of  all  this  peace  and  sweetness,  I  walk 
in  loneliness  and  gloom,  hardly  daring,  so  faith- 
less and  despairing  I  am,  to  let  my  heart  go  out  to 
the  love  and  goodness  round  me,  for  fear  of  losing 
it  all,  for  fear  that  those  souls  I  love  may  be  with- 
drawn from  me  or  I  from  them.  In  this  I  know 
that  I  am  sadly  and  darkly  wrong — the  prudent 


Culture  i8i 

coldness,  the  fear  of  sorrow  pulls  me  back ;  irreso- 
lute, cowardly,  base !  Yet  even  so  I  must  trust 
the  Hand  that  moulded  me,  and  the  Will  that 
bade  me  be,  just  so  and  not  otherwise. 

June  ^y  1889. 
It  is  a  melancholy  reflection  how  very  little  the 
highest  and  most  elaborate  culture  effects  in  the 
direction  of  producing  creative  and  original  writ- 
ing. Very  few  indeed  of  our  great  writers  have 
been  technically  cultivated  men.  How  little  we 
look  to  the  universities,  where  a  lifetime  devoted 
to  the  study  of  the  nuances  of  classical  expression 
is  considered  well  spent,  for  any  literature  which 
either  raises  the  intellectual  temperature  or  en- 
riches the  blood  of  the  world  !  The  fact  is  that 
the  highly-cultivated  man  tends  to  find  himself 
mentally  hampered  by  his  cultivation,  to  wade  in 
a  sea  of  glue,  as  Tennyson  said.  It  is  partly  that 
highly-cultivated  minds  grow  to  be  subservient  to 
authority,  and  to  contemn  experiment  as  rash 
and  obstreperous.  Partly  also  the  least  move- 
ment of  the  mind  dislodges  such  a  pile  of  prec- 
edents and  phrases  and  aphorisms,  stored  and 
amassed  by  diligent  reading,  that  the  mind  is  en- 
cumbered by  the  thought  that  most  things  worth 


i82  The  Altar  Fire 

saying  have  been  so  beautifully  said  that  repeti- 
tion is  out  of  the  question.  Partly,  too,  a  false 
and  fastidious  refinement  lays  hold  of  the  mind  ; 
and  an  intellect  trained  in  the  fine  perception 
of  ancient  expression  is  unable  to  pass  through 
the  earlier  stages  through  which  a  writer  must 
pass,  when  the  stream  flows  broken  and  turbid, 
when  it  appears  impossi'^e  to  capture  and  de- 
fine the  idea  which  seems  so  intangible  and 
indefinable. 

What  an  original  writer  requires  is  to  be  able 
to  see  a  subject  for  himself,  and  then  to  express 
it  for  himself.  The  only  cu'tivation  he  needs  is 
just  enough  to  realise  that  there  are  differences  of 
subject  and  differences  of  expression,  just  enough 
to  discern  the  general  lines  upon  which  subjects 
can  be  evolved,  and  to  perceive  that  lucidity, 
grace,  and  force  of  expression  are  attainable. 
The  over-cultivated  man,  after  reading  a  master- 
piece, is  crushed  and  flattened  under  his  ad- 
miration; but  the  effect  of  a  masterpiece  upon  an 
original  spirit,  is  to  make  him  desire  to  say  some- 
thing else  that  rises  in  his  soul,  and  to  say  it  in 
his  own  words ;  all  he  needs  in  the  way  of  train- 
ing is  just  enough  for  him  to  master  technique. 
The  highly-cultivated  man  is  as  one  dazzled  by 


Culture  and  Imagination      183 

gazing  upon  the  sun ;  he  has  no  eyes  for  anything 
else ;  a  bright  disc,  imprinted  upon  his  eyes,  floats 
between  him  and  every  other  object. 

The  best  illustration  of  this  is  the  case  of  the 
great  trio,  Wordsworth,  Southey,  and  Coleridge. 
All  three  started  as  poets.  Coleridge  was  dis- 
tracted from  poetry  into  metaphysics,  mainly,  I 
believe,  by  his  indulgence  in  opium,  and  the  tor- 
turing contemplation  of  his  own  moral  impotence. 
He  turned  to  philosophy  to  see  if  he  could  find 
some  clue  to  the  bewildering  riddle  of  life,  and 
he  lost  his  way  among  philosophical  speculations. 
Southey,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man  of  Spartan 
virtue,  became  a  highly-cultivated  writer;  he 
sate  in  his  spacious  library  of  well-selected  books, 
arranged  with  a  finical  preciseness,  apportioning 
his  day  between  various  literary  pursuits.  He 
made  an  income;  he  wrote  excellent  ephemeral 
volumes;  he  gained  a  somewhat  dreary  reputa- 
tion. But  Wordsworth,  with  his  tiny  bookshelf 
of  odd  tattered  volumes,  with  pages  of  manu- 
script interleaved  to  supply  missing  passages, 
alone  kept  his  heart  and  imagination  active, 
by  deliberate  leisure,  elaborate  sauntering,  un- 
ashamed idleness. 

The  reason  why  very  few  uneducated  persons 


i84  The  Altar  Fire 

have  been  writers  of  note,  is  because  they  have 
been  unable  to  take  up  the  problem  at  the  right 
point.  A  writer  cannot  start  absolutely  afresh; 
he  must  have  the  progress  of  thought  behind 
him,  and  he  must  join  the  procession  in  due 
order.  Therefore  the  best  outfit  for  a  writer  is 
to  have  just  enough  cultivation  to  enable  him  to 
apprehend  the  drift  and  development  of  thought, 
to  discern  the  social  and  emotional  problems  that 
are  in  the  air,  so  that  he  can  interpret — that  is  the 
secret — the  thoughts  that  are  astir,  but  which 
have  not  yet  been  brought  to  the  birth.  He  must 
know  enough  and  not  too  much;  he  must  not 
dim  his  perception  by  acquainting  himself  in  de- 
tail with  what  has  been  said  or  thought ;  he  must 
not  take  off  the  freshness  of  his  mind  by  too 
much  intellectual  gymnastics.  It  is  a  race  across 
country  for  which  he  is  preparing,  and  he  will 
learn  better  what  the  practical  difficulties  are  by 
daring  excursions  of  his  own,  than  by  acquiring 
a  formal  suppleness  in  prescribed  exercises. 

The  originality  and  the  output  of  the  writer  are 
conditioned  by  his  intellectual  and  vital  energy. 
Most  men  require  all  their  energy  for  the  ordinary 
pursuits  of  life ;  all  creative  work  is  the  result  of  a 
certain  superabundance  of  mental  force.     If  this 


Accumulated  Literature       185 

force  is  used  up  in  social  duties,  in  professional 
business,  even  in  the  pursuit  of  a  high  degree  of 
mental  cultivation,  originality  must  suffer ;  and 
therefore  a  man  whose  aim  is  to  write,  ought 
resolutely  to  limit  his  activities.  What  would  be 
idleness  in  another  is  for  him  a  storing  of  forces ; 
what  in  an  ordinary  man  would  be  malingering 
and  procrastination,  is  for  the  writer  the  repose 
necessary  to  allow  his  energies  to  concentrate 
themselves  upon  his  chosen  work. 

June  8,  1889. 
I  have  been  looking  at  a  catalogue,  this  morning, 
of  the  publications  of  a  firm  that  is  always  bring- 
ing out  new  editions  of  old  writers.  I  suppose 
they  find  a  certain  sale  for  these  books,  or  they 
would  not  issue  them;  and  yet  I  cannot  conceive 
who  buys  them  in  their  thousands,  and  still  less 
who  reads  them.  Teachers,  perhaps,  of  literature; 
or  people  who  are  inspired  by  local  lectures  to  go 
in  search  of  culture  ?  It  is  a  great  problem,  this 
accumulation  of  literature;  and  it  seems  to  me  a 
very  irrational  thing  to  do  to  republish  the  com- 
plete works  of  old  authors,  who  perhaps,  in  the 
midst  of  a  large  mass  of  essentially  second-rate 
work,  added  half-a-dozen  lyrics  to  the  literature  of 


1 86  The  Altar  Fire 

the  world.  But  surely  it  is  time  that  we  began  to 
select  ?  Whatever  else  there  is  time  for  in  this 
world,  there  certainly  is  not  time  to  read  old 
half- forgotten  second-rate  work.  Of  course  people 
who  are  making  a  vSpecial  study  of  an  age,  a 
period,  a  school  of  writers,  have  to  plough  through 
a  good  deal  that  is  not  intrinsically  worth  reading; 
but,  as  a  rule,  when  a  man  has  done  this,  instead  of 
saying  boldly  that  the  greater  part  of  an  author's 
writings  may  be  wisely  neglected  and  left  alone, 
he  loses  himself  in  the  critical  discrimination  and 
the  chronological  arrangement  of  inferior  composi- 
tions ;  perhaps  he  rescues  a  few  lines  of  merit  out 
of  a  mass  of  writing;  but  there  is  hardly  time 
now  to  read  long  ponderous  poems  for  the  sake  of 
a  few  fine  flashes  of  emotion  and  expression. 
What,  as  a  rule,  distinguishes  the  work  of  the 
amateur  from  the  work  of  the  great  writer  is  that 
an  amateur  will  retain  a  poem  for  the  sake  of  a 
few  good  lines,  wher(?as  a  great  writer  will  re- 
lentlessly sacrifice  a  few  fine  phrases,  if  the  whole 
structure  and  texture  of  the  poem  is  loose  and 
unsatisfactory.  The  only  chance  of  writing  some- 
thing that  will  live  is  to  be  sure  that  the  whole 
thing  —  book,  essay,  poem,  —  is  perfectly  pro- 
portioned, firm,  hammered,  definite.     The  sign 


UNlVEf 

^ — =^  Correct  Information  187 

and  seal  of  a  great  writer  is  that  he  has  either  the 
patience  to  improve  loose  work,  or  the  courage  to 
sacrifice  it. 

But  most  readers  are  so  irrational,  so  submis- 
sive, so  deferential,  that  they  will  swallow  an 
author  whole.  They  think  dimly  that  they  can  ar- 
rive at  a  certain  kind  of  culture  by  knowledge ;  but 
knowledge  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  point  is 
to  have  perception,  emotion,  discrimination.  This 
is  where  education  fails  so  grievously,  that  teachers 
of  this  independent  and  perceptive  process  are  so 
rare,  and  that  teaching  too  often  falls  into  the 
hands  of  conscientious  people,  with  good  memories, 
who  think  that  it  benefits  the  mind  to  load  it  with 
facts  and  dates,  and  forget,  or  do  not  know,  that 
what  is  needed  is  a  sort  of  ardent  inner  fire,  that 
consumes  the  debris  and  fuses  the  ore. 

In  that  dry,  ugly,  depressing  book,  Harry  and 
Lucy,  which  I  used  to  read  in  my  youth,  there  is  a 
terrible  father, kind,  virtuous,  conscientious,  whose 
one  idea  seems  to  be  to  encourage  the  children  to 
amass  correct  information.  The  party  is  driving 
in  a  chaise  together,  and  Lucy  begins  to  tell  a 
story  of  a  little  girl,  Kitty  Maples  by  name,  whom 
she  has  met  at  her  Aunt  Pierrepoint's;  it  seems  as 
if  the  conversation  is  for  once  to  be  enlightened  by 


1 88  The  Altar  Fire 

a  ray  of  human  interest,  but  the  name  is  hardly 
out  of  her  hps,  when  the  father  directs  her  at- 
tention to  a  building  beside  the  road,  and  adds, 
"Let  us  talk  of  things  rather  than  of  people." 
The  building  turns  out  to  be  a  sugar-refinery,  or 
some  equally  depressing  place,  and  the  unhappy 
children  are  initiated  into  its  mysteries.  What 
could  be  more  cheerless  and  dispiriting  ?  Lucy  is 
represented  as  a  high-spirited  and  somewhat  giddy 
child,  who  is  always  being  made  aware  of  her 
moral  deficiencies. 

One  looks  forward  sadly  to  the  time  when 
nature  has  been  resolutely  expelled  by  a  know- 
ledge of  dynamics  and  statics,  and  when  Lucy, 
with  children  of  her  own,  will  be  directing  their 
attention  away  from  childish  fancies,  to  the  fact 
that  the  poker  is  a  lever,  and  that  curly  hair  is  a 
good  hygrometer. 

Plenty  of  homely  and  simple  virtues  are  incul- 
cated in  Harry  and  Lucy ;  but  the  attitude  of 
mind  that  must  inevitably  result  from  such  an 
education  is  hard,  complacent,  and  superior. 
The  children  are  scolded  out  of  superficial  vani- 
ties, and  their  place  is  occupied  by  a  satanical 
sort  of  pride — the  pride  of  possessing  correct  in- 
formation. 


Use  of  Books  189 

What  does  one  want  to  make  of  one's  own 
children  ?  One  wants  them  to  be  generous, 
nfFectionate,  simple-minded,  just,  temperate  in 
the  moral  region.  In  the  intellectual  region,  one 
desires  them  to  be  alert,  eager,  independent,  per- 
ceptive, interested.  I  like  them  to  ask  a  hundred 
questions  about  what  they  see  and  hear.  I  want 
them  to  be  tender  and  compassionate  1  o  animals 
and  insects.  As  for  books,  I  want  them  to  follow 
their  own  taste,  but  I  surround  them  only  with 
the  best ;  but  even  so  I  want  them  to  have  minds 
of  their  own,  to  have  preferences,  and  reasons 
for  their  preferences.  I  do  not  want  them  to 
follow  my  taste,  but  to  trust  their  own.  I  do 
not  in  the  least  care  about  their  amassing  correct 
information.  It  is  much  better  that  they  should 
learn  how  to  use  books.  It  is  very  strange  how 
theories  of  education  remain  impervious  to  de- 
velopment. In  the  days  when  books  were  scarce 
and  expensive,  when  knowledge  was  not  formu- 
lated and  summarised,  men  had  to  depend  largely 
on  their  own  stores.  But  now,  what  is  the  use  of 
books,  if  one  is  still  to  load  one's  memory  with 
details  ?  The  training  of  memory  is  a  very  un- 
important part  of  education  nowadays  ;  people 
with  accurate  memories  are  far  too  apt  to  trust 


I90  The  Altar  Fire 

them,  and  to  despise  verification.  Indeed  a  well- 
filled  memory  is  a  great  snare,  because  it  leads 
the  possessor  of  it  to  believe,  as  I  have  said,  that 
knowledge  is  culture,  A  good  digestion  is  more 
important  to  a  man  than  the  possession  of  many- 
sacks  of  corn  ;  and  what  one  ought  rather  to 
cultivate  nowadays  is  mental  digestion. 

June  14,  1889. 

It  is  comforting  to  reflect  how  easy  it  is  to 
abandon  habits,  and  how  soon  a  new  habit  takes 
the  place  of  the  old.  Some  months  ago  I  put 
writing  aside  in  despair,  feeling  that  I  was  turn- 
ing away  from  the  most  stable  thing  in  life  ;  yet 
even  now  I  have  learned  largely  to  acquiesce  in 
silence  ;  the  dreary  and  objectless  mood  visits  me 
less  and  less  frequently.  What  have  I  found  to 
fill  the  place  of  the  old  habit  ?  I  have  begun  to 
read  much  more  widely,  and  recognise  how  very 
ill-educated  I  am.  In  my  writing  days,  I  used 
to  read  mainly  for  the  purposes  of  my  books,  or, 
if  I  turned  aside  to  general  reading  at  all,  it  was 
to  personal,  intime^  subjective  books  that  I 
turned,  books  in  which  one  could  see  the  de- 
velopment of  character,  anal5^se  emotion,  acquire 
psychological    experience  ;    but    now   I    find    a 


New  Habits  191 

growing  interest  in  sociological  and  historical 
ideas  ;  a  mist  begins  to  roll  away  from  my  mental 
horizon,  and  I  realise  how  small  was  the  circle  in 
which  I  was  walking.  I  sometimes  find  myself 
hoping  that  this  may  mean  the  possibility  of  a 
wider  flight ;  but  I  do  not,  strange  to  say,  care 
very  much  about  the  prospect.  Just  at  present, 
I  appear  to  myself  to  have  been  like  a  botanist 
walking  in  a  great  forest,  looking  out  only  for 
small  typical  specimens  of  certain  classes  of 
ground-plants,  without  any  eyes  for  the  lux- 
urious vegetation,  the  beauty  of  the  rich 
opening  glade,  the  fallen  day  of  the  dense 
underwood. 

Then  too  I  have  begun  to  read  regularly  with 
the  children  ;  I  did  it  formerly,  but  only  fitfully, 
and  I  am  sorry  to  say  grudgingly.  But  now  it 
has  become  a  matter  of  intense  interest  to  me,  to 
see  how  thoughts  strike  on  eager  and  ingenuous 
minds.  I  find  my  trained  imagination  a  great 
help  here,  because  it  gives  me  the  power  of 
clothing  a  bare  scene  with  detail,  and  of  giving 
vitality  to  an  austere  figure.  I  have  made  all 
sorts  of  discoveries,  to  me  astonishing  and  de- 
lightful, about  my  children.  I  recognise  some  of 
their  qualities  and  modes  of  thought ;   but  there 


192  The  Altar  Fire 

are  whole  ranges  of  qualities  apparent,  of  which 
I  cannot  even  guess  the  origin.  One  thinks  of  a 
child  as  deriving  its  nature  from  its  parents,  and 
its  experience  from  its  surroundings  ;  but  there  is 
much  beside  that,  original  views,  unexpected 
curiosities,  and,  strangest  of  all,  things  that  seem 
almost  like  dim  reminiscences  floated  out  of  other 
far-off  lives.  They  seem  to  infer  so  much  that 
they  have  never  heard,  to  perceive  so  much  that 
they  have  never  seen,  to  know  so  much  that  they 
have  never  been  told.  Bewildering  as  this  is  in 
the  intellectual  region,  it  is  still  more  marvellous 
in  the  moral  region.  They  scorn,  they  shudder 
at,  they  approve,  they  love,  as  by  some  generous 
instinct,  qualities  of  which  they  have  had  no  ex- 
perience. "  I  don't  know  what  it  is,  but  there 
is  something  wrong  about  Cromwell, ' '  said  Maggie 
gravely,  when  we  had  been  reading  the  history  of 
the  Commonwealth.  Now  Cromwell  is  just  one 
of  those  characters  which,  as  a  rule,  a  child 
accepts  as  a  model  of  rigid  virtue  and  public 
spirit.  Alec,  whose  taste  is  all  for  soldiers  and 
sailors  just  now,  and  who  might,  one  would  have 
thought,  have  been  dazzled  by  military  glory, 
pronounced  Napoleon  '* rather  a  common  man." 
This  arose  purely  in  the  boy's  own  mind,  because 


Teaching  i93 

I  am  very  careful  not  to  anticipate  any  judg- 
ments ;  I  think  it  of  the  highest  importance  that 
they  should  learn  to  form  their  own  opinions,  so 
that  we  never  attempt  to  criticise  a  character  until 
we  have  mastered  the  facts  of  his  life. 

Another  thing  I  am  doing  with  them,  which 
seems  to  me  to  develop  intelligence  pleasurably 
and  rapidly,  is  to  read  them  a  passage  or  an 
episode,  and  then  to  require  them  to  relate  it  or 
write  it  in  their  own  words.  T  don't  remember 
that  this  was  ever  done  for  me  in  the  whole 
course  of  my  elaborate  education  ;  and  the  speed 
with  which  they  have  acquired  the  art  of  seizing 
on  salient  points  is  to  me  simply  marvellous.  I 
have  my  reward  in  such  remarks  as  these  which 
Maud  repeated  to  me  yesterday.  ''lycssons," 
said  Alec  gravely,  *'have  become  ever  so  much 
more  fun  since  we  began  to  do  them  with  father." 
'*  Fun  !  "  said  Maggie,  with  indignant  emotion  ; 
"  they  are  not  lessons  at  all  now  !  "  I  certainly 
do  not  observe  any  reluctance  on  their  part  to  set 
to  work,  and  I  do  see  a  considerable  reluctance  to 
stop ;  yet  I  don't  think  there  is  the  least  strain 
about  it.  But  it  is  true  I  save  them  all  the 
stupid  and  irksome  work  that  made  my  own 
acquisition  of  knowledge  so  bitter  a  thing.     We 

»3 


194  The  Altar  Fire 

read  French  together ;  my  own  early  French 
lessons  were  positively  disgusting,  partly  from 
the  abominable  little  books  on  dirty  paper  and  in 
bad  type  that  we  read,  and  partly  from  the  absurd 
character  of  the  books  chosen.  The  Cid  and 
Voltaire's  Charles  XI I.  !  I  used  to  wonder  dimly 
how  it  was  ever  worth  any  one's  while  to  string 
such  ugly  and  meaningless  sentences  together. 
Now  I  read  with  the  children  Sans  Famille  and 
Colomba;  and  they  acquire  the  language  with 
incredible  rapidity.  I  tell  them  any  word  they 
do  not  know ;  and  we  have  a  simple  system  of 
emulation,  by  which  the  one  who  recollects  first  a 
word  we  have  previously  had,  receives  a  mark  ; 
and  the  one  who  first  reaches  a  total  of  a  hundred 
marks  gets  sixpence.  The  adorable  nature  of 
women  !  Maggie,  whose  verbal  memory  is  excel- 
lent, went  rapidly  ahead,  and  spent  her  sixpence 
on  a  present  to  console  Alec  for  the  indignity  of 
having  been  beaten.  Then,  too,  they  write  letters 
in  French  to  their  mother,  which  are  solemnly 
sent  by  post.  It  is  not  very  idiomatic  French, 
but  it  is  amazingly  flexible  ;  and  it  is  delicious  to 
see  the  children  at  breakfast  watching  Maud  as 
she  opens  the  letters  and  smiles  over  them. 

Perhaps  this  is  not  a  very  exalted   type  of 


The  System  195 

education  ;  it  certainly  seems  to  fulfil  its  purpose 
very  wonderfully  in  making  tbem  alert,  inquisi- 
tive, eager,  and  without  any  shadow  of  priggish - 
ness.  It  is  established  as  a  principle  that  it  is 
stupid  not  to  know  things,  and  still  more  stupid 
to  try  and  make  other  people  aware  that  you 
know  them  ;  and  the  apologies  with  which  Mag- 
gie translated  a  French  menu  at  a  house  where 
we  stayed  with  the  children  the  other  day 
were  delightful  to  behold. 

I  am  very  anxious  that  they  should  not  be 
priggish,  and  I  do  not  think  they  are  in  any 
danger  of  becoming  so.  I  suppose  I  rather  skim 
the  cream  of  their  education,  and  leave  the  duller 
part  to  the  governess,  a  nice,  tranquil  person, 
who  lives  in  the  village,  the  daughter  of  a  pre- 
vious vicar,  and  comes  in  in  the  mornings.  I 
don't  mean  that  their  interest  and  alertness  does 
not  vary,  but  they  are  obedient  and  active-minded 
children,  and  they  prefer  their  lessons  with  me 
so  much  that  it  has  not  occurred  to  them  to  be 
bored.  If  they  flag,  I  don't  press  them.  I  tell 
them  a  story,  or  show  them  pictures.  While 
I  write  these  words  in  my  armchair,  they  are 
sitting  at  the  table,  writing  an  account  of  some- 
thing I  have  told  them.     Maggie  lays  down  her 


196  The  Altar  Fire 

pen  with  a  sigh  of  satisfaction.  "  There,  that  is 
beautiful !  But  I  dare  say  it  is  not  as  good  as 
yours,  Alec."  '*  Don't  interrupt  me,"  says  Alec 
sternly,  "and  don't  push  against  me  when  I  'm 
busy."  Maggie  looks  round  and  concludes  that 
I  am  busy  too.  In  a  minute,  Alec  will  have 
done,  and  then  I  shall  read  the  two  pieces  aloud  ; 
then  we  shall  criticise  them  respectfully.  The 
aim  is  to  make  them  frankly  recognise  the  good 
points  of  each  other's  compositions  as  well  as  the 
weak  points,  and  this  they  are  very  ready  to  do. 
In  all  this  I  do  not  neglect  the  physical  side. 
They  can  ride  and  swim.  They  go  out  in  all 
weathers  and  get  wholesomely  wet,  dirty,  and 
tired.  Games  are  a  difl&culty ,  but  I  want  them  to 
be  able,  if  necessary,  to  do  without  games.  We 
botanise,  we  look  for  nests,  we  geologise,  we 
study  birds  through  glasses,  we  garden.  It  is  all 
very  unscientific  but  they  observe,  they  perceive, 
they  love  the  country.  Moreover,  Maud  has  a 
passion  for  knowing  all  the  village  people,  and 
takes  the  children  with  her,  so  that  they  really 
know  the  village-folk  all  round ;  they  are  cer- 
tainly tremendously  happy  and  interested  in  every- 
thing. Of  course  they  are  volatile  in  their  tastes, 
but  I  rather  encourage  that.     I  know  that  in  the 


Volatile  Tastes  197 

little  old  moral  books  the  idea  was  that  nothing 
should  be  taken  up  by  children,  unless  it  was  done 
thoroughly  and  perseveringly  ;  but  I  had  rather 
that  they  had  a  wide  experience  ;  the  time  to  se- 
lect and  settle  down  upon  a  pursuit  is  not  yet,  and 
I  had  rather  that  they  found  out  for  themselves 
what  they  care  about,  than  practise  them  in  a  pre- 
mature patience.  The  only  thing  I  object  to  is 
their  taking  up  something  which  they  have  tried 
and  dropped ;  then  I  do  require  a  pledge  that  they 
shall  stick  to  it.  I  say  to  them,  **  I  don't  mind 
how  many  things  you  try,  and  if  you  find  you  don' t 
care  about  one,  you  may  give  it  up  when  you  have 
given  it  a  trial ;  but  it  is  a  bad  thing  to  be  always 
changing,  and  everybody  can't  do  everything  ;  so 
don  't  take  up  this  particular  thing  again,  unless 
you  can  give  a  good  reason  for  thinking  you  will 
keep  to  it." 

One  of  the  things  I  insist  upon  their  doing, 
whether  they  like  it  or  not,  is  learning  to  play 
the  piano.  There  are  innumerable  people,  I 
find,  who  regret  not  having  been  made  to  over- 
come the  initial  difficulties  of  music  ;  and  the 
only  condition  I  make  is,  that  they  shall  be  al- 
lowed to  stop  when  they  can  play  a  simple 
piece   of  music   at    sight   correctly,    and   when 


19^  The  Altar  Fire 

they  have  learnt  the  simple  rules  of  harmony. 
For  teaching  them  geography,  I  have  a  simple 
plan  ;  my  own  early  geography  lessons  were  to  my 
recollection  singularly  dismal.  I  used,  as  far  as  I 
can  remember,  to  learn  lists  of  towns,  rivers,  capes, 
and  mountains.  Then  there  were  horrible  lists  of 
exports  and  imports,  such  as  hides,  jute,  and 
hardware.  I  did  not  know  what  any  of  the  things 
were,  and  no  one  explained  them  to  me.  What 
we  do  now  is  this.  I  read  up  a  book  of  travels, 
and  then  we  travel  in  a  country  by  means  of 
atlases,  while  I  describe  the  sort  of  landscape  we 
should  see,  the  inhabitants,  their  occupations, 
their  religion,  and  show  the  children  pictures.  I 
can  only  say  that  it  seems  to  be  a  success.  They 
learn  arithmetic  with  their  governess,  and  what 
is  aimed  at  is  rapid  and  accurate  calculations. 
As  for  religious  instruction,  we  read  portions  of 
the  Bible,  striking  scenes  and  stories,  carefully  se- 
lected, and  the  Gospel  story,  with  plenty  of  pic- 
tures. But  here  I  own  I  find  a  diflSculty.  With 
regard  to  the  Old  Testament,  I  have  frankly 
told  them  that  many  of  the  stories  are  legends 
and  exaggerations,  like  the  legends,  of  other 
nations.  That  is  not  difficult ;  I  say  that  in  old 
days  when  people  did  not  understand  science, 


Religious  Teaching  199 

many  things  seemed  possible  which  we  know  now 
to  be  impossible  ;  and  that  things  which  hap- 
pened naturally,  were  often  thought  to  have  hap- 
pened supernaturally ;  moreover,  that  both 
imagination  and  exaggeration  crept  in  about  fa- 
mous people.  I  am  sure  that  there  is  a  great  dan- 
ger in  teaching  intelligent  children  that  the  Bible 
is  all  literally  true.  And  then  the  difficulty  comes 
in,  that  they  ask  artlessly  whether  such  a  story  as 
the  miracle  of  Cana,  or  the  feeding  of  the  five  thou- 
sand, is  true.  I  reply  frankly  that  we  cannot  be 
sure  ;  that  the  people  who  wrote  it  down  believed 
it  to  be  true,  but  that  it  came  to  them  by  hearsay ; 
and  the  children  seem  to  have  no  difficulty  about 
the  matter.  Then,  too,  I  do  not  want  them  to  be 
too  familiar,  as  children,  with  the  words  of  Christ, 
because  I  am  sure  that  it  is  a  fact  that,  for  many 
people,  a  mechanical  familiarity  with  the  Gospel 
language  simply  blurs  and  weakens  the  marvel- 
lous significance  and  beauty  of  the  thought.  It 
becomes  so  crystallised  that  they  cannot  penetrate 
it.  I  have  treated  some  parts  of  the  Gospel  after 
the  fashion  of  Philochristus,  telling  them  a  story, 
as  though  seen  by  some  earnest  spectator.  I  find 
that  they  take  the  deepest  interest  in  these  stories, 
and  that  the  figure  of  Christ  is  very  real  and  au- 


200  The  Altar  Fire 

gust  to  them.  But  I  teacli  them  no  doctrine  ex- 
cept the  very  simplest — the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
the  Divinity  of  Christ,  the  indwelling  voice  of  the 
Spirit ;  and  I  am  sure  that  religion  is  a  pure, 
sweet,  vital  force  in  their  lives,  not  a  harsh  thing, 
a  question  of  sin  and  punishment,  but  a  matter  of 
I^ove,  Strength,  Forgiveness,  Holiness.  The  one 
thing  I  try  to  show  them  is  that  God  was  not,  as 
I  used  to  think,  the  property  so  to  speak,  of  the 
Jews  ;  but  that  He  is  behind  and  above  every  race 
and  nation,  slowly  leading  them  to  the  light.  The 
two  things  I  will  not  allow  them  to  think  of  are 
the  Doctrines  of  the  Fall  and  the  Atonement ;  the 
doctrine  of  the  Fall  is  contrary  to  all  true  know- 
ledge, the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  inconsist- 
ent with  every  idea  of  Justice.  But  it  is  a  difficult 
matter.  They  will  hear  sermons,  and  Alec,  at 
school,  may  have  dogmatic  instruction  given  him  ; 
but  I  shall  prepare  him  for  Confirmation  here,  and 
have  him  confirmed  at  home,  and  thus  the  main 
difficulty  will  be  avoided ;  neither  do  I  conceal 
fi-om  them  that  good  people  think  very  differently 
on  these  points.  It  is  curious  to  remember  that, 
brought  up  as  I  was  on  strict  Evangelical  lines,  I 
was  early  inculcated  into  the  sin  of  Schism,  with 
the  result  that  I  hurried  with  my  Puritan  nurse 


A  Primrose  Path  201 

swiftly  and  violently  by  a  Roman  Catholic  chapel 
and  a  Wesley  an  meeting-house  which  we  used  to 
pass  in  our  walks,  with  a  sense  of  horror  and 
wickedness  in  the  air.  Indeed,  I  remember  once 
asking  my  mother  why  God  did  not  rain  down  fire 
and  brimstone  on  these  two  places  of  worship, 
and  received  a  very  unsatisfactory  answer.  To 
develop  such  a  spirit  was,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a 
monstrous  sin  against  Christian  charity,  and  my 
children  shall  be  saved  from  that. 

Meantime  my  own  hours  are  increasingly  filled. 
It  takes  me  a  long  time  to  prepare  for  the  child- 
ren's lessons  ;  and  I  have  my  reward  abundantly 
in  the  delight  of  seeing  their  intelligence,  their 
perception,  their  interest  grow.  I  am  determ- 
ined that  the  beginnings  of  knowledge  shall  be 
for  them  a  primrose  path  ;  I  suppose  there  will 
have  to  be  some  stricter  mental  discipline  later  ; 
but  they  shall  begin  by  thinking  and  expecting 
things  to  be  interesting  and  delightful,  before  they 
realise  that  things  can  also  be  hard  and  dnll. 

June  20,  1889. 
When  I  read  books  on  education,  when  I  listen 
to  the  talk  of  educational  theorists,  when  I  see 
syllabuses  and  schedules,  schemes  and  curricula, 


202  The  Altar  Fire 

a  great  depression  settles  on  my  mind ;  I  fe.l  I 
have  no  interest  in  education,  and  a  deep  distrust 
of  theoretical  methods.  These  things  seem  to 
aim  at  missing  the  very  thing  of  which  we  are  in 
search,  and  to  lose  themselves  in  a  sort  of  child- 
ish game,  a  marshalling  of  processions,  a  lust  for 
organisation.  I  care  so  intensely  for  what  it  all 
means,  I  loathe  so  deeply  the  motives  that  seem 
at  work.  I  suppose  that  the  ordinary  man  con- 
siders a  species  of  success,  a  bettering  of  himself, 
the  acquisition  of  money  and  position  and  re- 
spectability, to  be  the  end  of  life ;  and  such  as 
these  look  upon  education  primarily  as  a  means 
of  arriving  at  their  object.  Such  was  the  old 
education  given  by  the  sophists,  which  aimed  at 
turning  out  a  well-balanced,  effective  man.  But 
all  this,  it  seems  to  me,  has  the  wrong  end  in 
view.  The  success  of  it  depends  upon  the  fact  that 
every  one  is  not  so  capable  of  rising,  that  the  rank 
and  file  must  be  in  the  background,  forming  the 
material  out  of  which  the  successful  man  makes  his 
combinations,  and  whom  he  contrives  to  despoil. 
The  result  of  it  is  that  the  \tell-educated  man 
becomes  hard,  brisk,  complacent,  contemptuous, 
knowing  his  own  worth,  using  his  equipment  for 
precise  and  definite  ends. 


Education  203 

My  idea  would  rather  be  that  education  should 
aim  at  teaching  people  how  to  be  happy  without 
success ;  because  the  shadow  of  success  is  vul- 
garity, and  vulgarity  is  the  one  thing  which  edu- 
cation ought  to  extinguish.  What  I  desire  is 
that  men  should  learn  to  see  what  is  beautiful,  to 
find  pleasure  in  homely  work,  to  fill  leisure  with 
innocent  enjoyment.  If  education,  as  the  term 
is  generally  used,  were  widely  and  universally 
successful,  the  whole  fabric  of  a  nation  would 
collapse,  because  no  one  thus  educated  would 
acquiesce  in  the  performance  of  humble  work.  It 
is  commonly  said  that  education  ought  to  make 
men  dissatisfied,  and  teach  them  to  desire  to  im- 
prove their  position.  It  is  a  pestilent  heresy.  It 
ought  to  teach  them  to  be  satisfied  with  simple 
conditions,  and  to  improve  themselves  rather 
than  their  position — the  end  of  it  ought  to  be  to 
produce  content.  Suppose,  for  an  instant — it 
sounds  a  fantastic  hypothesis — that  if  a  man  born 
in  the  country,  in  the  labouring  class,  were  fond 
of  field-work,  a  lover  of  the  sights  of  nature  in  all 
her  aspects,  fond  of  good  literature,  why  should 
he  seek  to  change  his  conditions  ?  But  education 
tends  to  make  boys  and  girls  fond  of  excitement, 
fond  of  town  sociabilities  and  amusements,  till 


204  The  Altar  Fire 

only  the  dull  and  unambitious  are  content  to 
remain  in  the  country.  And  yet  the  country 
work  will  have  to  be  done  until  the  end  of  time. 

It  is  a  dark  problem  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that 
we  are  only  saved  from  disaster,  in  our  well-meant 
efforts,  by  the  simple  fact  that  w^e  cannot  make 
humanity  what  we  so  short-sightedly  desire  to 
make  it ;  that  the  dull,  uninspired,  unambitious 
element  has  an  endurance  and  a  permanence 
which  we  cannot  change  if  we  would,  and  which 
it  is  well  for  us  that  we  cannot  change  ;  and  that 
in  spite  of  our  curricula  and  schedules,  mankind 
marches  quietly  upon  its  way  to  its  unknown 
goal. 

June  28,  1889. 
An  old  friend  has  been  staying  with  us,  a  very 
interesting  man  for  many  reasons,  but  principally 
for  the  fact  that  he  combines  two  sets  of  qualities 
that  are  rarely  found  together.  He  has  strong 
artistic  instincts  ;  he  would  like,  I  think,  to  have 
been  a  painter ;  he  has  a  deep  love  of  nature, 
woodland  places,  and  quiet  fields ;  he  loves  old 
and  beautiful  buildings  with  a  tenderness  that 
makes  it  a  real  misery  to  him  to  think  of  their 
destruction,  and  even  their  renovation  ;  and  he 


A  Ruskinian  205 

has,  too,  the  poetic  passion  for  flowers;  he  is 
happiest  in  his  garden.  But  besides  all  this,  he 
has  the  Puritan  virtues  strongly  developed ;  he 
loves  work,  and  duty,  and  simplicity  of  life,  with 
all  his  heart;  he  is  an  almost  rigid  judge  of 
conduct  and  character,  and  sometimes  flashes  out 
in  a  half  Pharisaical  scorn  against  meanness,  self- 
ishness, and  weakness.  He  is  naturally  a  pure 
Ruskinian  ;  he  would  like  to  destroy  railways 
and  machinery  and  manufactories ;  he  would 
like  working-men  to  enjoy  their  work,  and  dance 
together  on  the  village  green  in  the  evenings ; 
but  he  is  not  a  faddist  at  all,  and  has  the  health- 
iest and  simplest  power  of  enjoyment.  His 
severity  has  mellowed  with  age,  while  his  love  of 
beauty  has,  I  think,  increased  ;  he  does  not  care 
for  argument,  and  is  apt  to  say  pathetically  that 
he  knows  that  his  fellow-disputant  is  right,  but 
that  he  cannot  change  his  opinions,  and  does  not 
desire  to.  He  is  passing,  it  seems  to  me,  into  a 
very  gracious  and  soft  twilight  of  life  ;  he  grows 
more  patient,  more  tender,  more  serene.  His 
face,  always  beautiful,  has  taken  on  an  added 
beauty  of  faithful  service  and  gracious  sweetness. 
We  began  one  evening  to  discuss  a  book  that 
has  lately  been  published,  a  book  of  very  sad. 


2o6  The  Altar  Fire 

beautiful,  wise,  intimate  letters,  written  by  a 
woman  of  great  perception,  high  intellectual  gifts 
and  passionate  affections.  These  letters  were 
published,  not  long  after  her  death,  by  her  child- 
ren, to  whom  many  of  them  were  addressed. 

He  had  read  the  book,  I  found,  with  deep 
emotion ;  but  he  said  very  decidedly  that  it 
ought  not  to  have  been  published,  at  all  events 
so  soon  after  the  writer's  death.  I  am  inclined 
to  defer  greatly  to  his  judgment,  and  still  more  to 
his  taste,  and  I  have  therefore  read  the  book  again 
to  see  if  I  am  inclined  to  alter  my  mind.  I  find 
that  my  feeling  is  the  exact  opposite  of  his  in 
every  way.  I  feel  humbly  and  deeply  grateful 
to  the  children  who  have  given  the  letters  to  the 
world.  Of  course  if  there  had  been  any  idea 
in  the  mind  of  the  writer  that  they  would  be 
published,  she  would  probably  have  been  far 
more  reticent;  but,  as  it  was,  she  spoke  with  a 
perfect  openness  and  simplicity  of  all  that  was  in 
her  mind.  It  is  curious  to  reflect  that  I  met  the 
writer  more  than  once,  and  thought  her  a  cold, 
hard,  unsympathetic  woman.  She  had  to  endure 
many  sorrows  and  bereavements,  losing,  by  un- 
timely death,  those  whom  she  most  loved  ;  but 
the  revelation  of  her  pain  and  bewilderment,  and 


Privacy  207 

the  sublime  and  loving  resignation  with  which  she 
bore  it,  has  been  to  me  a  deep,  holy,  and  reviving 
experience.  Here  was  one  who  felt  grief  acutely, 
rebelliously,  and  passionately,  yet  whom  sorrow 
did  not  sear  or  harden,  suffering  did  not  make 
self-absorbed  or  morbid,  or  pain  make  callous. 
Her  love  flowed  out  more  richly  and  tenderly 
than  ever  to  those  who  were  left,  even  though  the 
loss  of  those  whom  she  loved  remained  an  un- 
fading grief,  an  open  wound.  She  did  not  even 
shun  the  scenes  and  houses  that  reminded  her  of 
her  bereavements ;  she  did  not  withdraw  from 
life,  she  made  no  parade  of  her  sorrows.  The 
whole  thing  is  so  wholesome,  so  patient,  so  de- 
voted, that  it  has  shown  me,  I  venture  to  say,  a 
higher  possibility  in  human  nature  of  bearing 
intolerable  calamities  with  sweetness  and  courage, 
than  I  had  dared  to  believe.  It  seems  to  me  that 
nothing  more  wise  or  brave  could  have  been  done 
by  the  survivors  than  to  make  these  letters  acces- 
sible to  others.  We  English  people  make  such  a 
secret  of  our  feelings,  are  so  stubbornly  reticent 
about  the  wrong  things,  have  so  false  and  stupid 
a  sense  of  decorum,  that  I  am  infinitely  grateful 
for  this  glimpse  of  a  pure,  patient,  and  devoted 
heart.     It  seems  to  me  that  the  one  thing  worth 


2o8  The  Altar  Fire 

knowing  in  this  world  is  what  other  people  think 
and  feel  about  the  great  experiences  of  life.  The 
writers  who  have  helped  the  world  most  are  those 
who  have  gone  deepest  into  the  heart  ;  but  the 
dullest  part  of  our  conventionality  is  that  when  a 
man  disguises  the  secrets  of  his  soul  in  a  play,  a 
novel,  a  lyric,  he  is  supposed  to  have  helped  us 
and  ministered  to  our  deepest  needs  ;  but  if  he 
speaks  directly,  in  his  own  voice  and  person,  of 
these  things,  he  is  at  once  accused  of  egotism  and 
indecorum.  It  is  not  that  we  dislike  sentiment 
and  feeling  ;  we  value  it  as  much  as  any  nation  ; 
but  we  think  that  it  must  be  spoken  of  symbolic- 
ally and  indirectly.  We  do  not  consider  a  man 
egotistical,  if  he  will  only  give  himself  a  feigned 
name,  and  write  of  his  experiences  in  the  third 
person.  But  if  he  uses  the  personal  pronoun,  he 
is  thought  to  be  shameless.  There  are  even 
people  who  consider  it  more  decent  to  say  *  *  one 
feels  and  one  thinks, ' '  than  to  say  ' '  I  feel  and  I 
think."  The  thing  that  I  most  desire,  in  inter- 
course with  other  men  and  women,  is  that  they 
should  talk  frankly  of  themselves,  their  hopes  and 
fears,  their  beliefs  and  uncertainties.  Yet  how 
many  people  can  do  that  ?  Part  of  our  English 
shyness  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  people  are  often 


Vital  Books  209 

curiously  cautious  about  what  they  say,  but 
entirely  indiscreet  in  what  they  write.  The  only 
books  which  possess  a  real  and  abiding  vitality 
are  those  in  which  personality  is  freely  and 
frankly  revealed.  Of  course  there  are  one  or  two 
authors  like  Shakespeare  who  seem  to  have 
had  the  power  of  penetrating  and  getting  inside 
any  personality,  but,  apart  from  them,  the  books 
that  go  on  being  read  and  reread  are  the  books  in 
which  one  seems  to  clasp  hands  with  a  human  soul. 
I  said  many  of  these  things  to  my  friend,  and 
he  replied  that  he  thought  I  was  probably  right, 
but  that  he  could  not  change  his  opinion.  He 
would  not  have  had  these  letters  pubHshed  until 
all  the  survivors  were  dead.  He  did  not  think 
that  the  people  who  liked  the  book  were  actuated 
by  good  motives,  but  had  merely  a  desire  to  pen- 
etrate behind  the  due  and  decent  privacies  of 
life ;  and  he  would  have  stopped  the  publication 
of  such  letters  if  he  could,  because  even  if  people 
liked  them,  it  was  not  good  for  them  to  read 
them.  He  said  that  he  himself  felt  on  reading 
the  book  as  if  he  had  been  listening  at  keyholes, 
or  peeping  in  at  windows,  and  seeing  the  natural 
endearments  of  husband  and  wife,  mother  and 
children. 


2IO  The  Altar  Fire 

I  said  that  what  seemed  to  me  to  make  a 
difference  was  whether  the  people  thus  espied 
were  conscious  of  the  espionage  or  not ;  and 
that  it  was  no  more  improper  to  have  such  things 
revealed  in  a  book,  than  to  have  them  described 
in  a  novel  or  shown  upon  the  stage.  Moreover, 
it  seemed  to  me,  I  said,  as  though  to  reveal  such 
things  in  a  book  was  the  perfect  compromise.  I 
feel  strongly  that  each  home,  each  circle  has  a 
right  to  its  own  privacy  ;  but  I  am  not  ashamed 
of  my  natural  feelings  and  affections,  and,  by 
allowing  them  to  appear  in  a  book,  I  feel  that  I 
am  just  speaking  of  them  simply  to  those  who 
will  understand.  I  desire  communion  with  all 
sympathetic  and  like-minded  persons  ;  but  one's 
actual  circle  of  friends  is  limited  by  time  and 
space  and  physical  conditions.  People  talk  of 
books  as  if  every  one  in  ihe  world  was  compelled 
to  read  them.  My  own  idea  of  a  book  is  that  it 
provides  a  medium  by  which  one  may  commune 
confidentially  with  people  whom  one  may  never 
see,  but  whom  one  is  glad  to  know  to  be  alive. 
One  can  make  friends  through  one's  books  with 
people  with  whom  one  agrees  in  spirit,  but  whose 
bodily  presence,  modes  of  life,  reticences,  habits, 
would  erect  a  barrier  to  social  intercourse.     It  is 


Confidential  Books  211 

so  much  easier  to  love  and  understand  people 
through  their  books  than  through  their  conversa- 
tion. In  books  they  put  down  their  best,  truest, 
most  deliberate  thoughts ;  in  talk,  they  are  at  the 
mercy  of  a  thousand  accidents  and  sensations. 
There  were  people  who  objected  to  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Browning  love-letters.  To  me  they 
were  the  sacred  and  beautiful  record  of  an  in- 
tensely holy  and  passionate  relation  between  two 
great  souls ;  and  I  can  afford  to  disregard  and 
to  contemn  the  people  who  thought  the  book 
strained,  unconventional,  and  shameless,  for  the 
sake  of  those  whose  faith  in  love  and  beauty  w^as 
richly  and  generously  nurtured  by  it. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  whole  progress  of  life 
and  thought,  of  love  and  charity,  depends  upon 
our  coming  to  understand  each  other.  The  hos- 
tile seclusion  which  some  desire  is  really  a  savage 
and  almost  animal  inheritance  ;  and  the  best  part 
of  civilisation  has  sprung  from  the  generous 
self-revelation  of  kindly  and  honourable  souls. 

I  am  not  even  deterred,  in  a  case  of  this  kind, 
by  wondering  whether  the  person  concerned 
would  have  liked  or  disliked  the  publication  of 
these  letters.  I  feel  no  sort  of  doubt  that,  as  far 
as  I  am  concerned,  she  would  be  only  too  willing 


2  12  The  Altar  Fire 

that  I  should  thus  have  read  and  loved  them,  and 
I  cannot  believe  that  the  disapprobation  of  a  few 
austere  people,  or  the  curiosity  of  a  few  vulgar 
people,  would  weigh  in  the  balance  for  a  moment 
against  the  joy  of  like-minded  spirits. 

The  worst  dissatisfaction  of  life  is  the  difficulty 
one  has  in  drawing  near  to  others,  the  foolish 
hardness,  often  only  superficial,  which  makes  one 
hold  back  from  and  repudiate  intimacies.  If  I 
had  known  and  loved  a  great  and  worthy  spirit, 
and  had  been  the  recipient  of  his  confidences,  I 
should  hold  it  a  solemn  duty  to  tell  the  world 
what  I  knew.  I  should  care  nothing  for  the 
carping  of  the  cold  and  unsympathetic,  but  I 
should  base  my  decision  on  an  approval  of  all 
loving  and  generous  souls.  This  vseems  to  me 
the  highest  service  that  art  can  render,  and  if  it 
be  said  that  no  question  of  art  comes  in,  in  the 
publication  of  such  records  as  these  letters,  I 
would  reply  that  they  are  themselves  works  of 
the  highest  and  most  instinctive  art,  because  the 
world,  its  relations  and  affections,  its  loss  and 
grief,  its  pain  and  suffering,  are  here  seen  pa- 
tiently mirrored  and  perfectly  expressed  by  a 
most  perceptive  personality.  The  moment  that 
emotions  are  depicted  and  represented,  that  mo- 


True  and  False  Asceticism    213 

ment  they  have  felt  the  holy  and  transfiguring 
power  of  art ;  and  then  they  pass  out  of  the 
region  of  stuffy  conventions  and  commonplace 
decorums  into  a  finer  and  fi-eer  air.  I  do  not 
deny  that  there  is  much  vulgar  inquisitiveness 
abroad,  but  that  matters  little ;  and,  for  myself, 
I  am  glad  to  think  that  the  world  is  moving  in 
the  direction  of  a  greater  frankness.  I  do  not 
mean  that  a  man  has  not  a  right  to  live  Jiis  life 
privately,  in  his  own  house  and  his  own  circle,  if 
he  wills.  But  if  that  life  is  lived  simply,  gener- 
ously, and  bravely,  I  welcome  any  ripple  or  ray 
from  it  that  breaks  in  light  and  fragrance  upon 
the  harsher  and  uglier  world. 

July  I,  1889. 

I  have  just  read  an  interesting  sentence.  I 
don't  know  where  it  comes  from — I  saw  it  in  a 
book  of  extracts. 

"  I  am  more  and  more  convinced  that  the  cure 
for  sentiment,  as  for  all  weakened  forms  of  strong 
things,  is  not  to  refuse  to  feel  it,  but  to  feel  more 
in  it.  This  seems  to  me  to  make  the  whole 
difference  between  a  true  and  a  false  asceticism. 
The  false  goes  for  getting  rid  of  what  it  is  afi*aid 
of ;  the  true  goes  for  using  and  making  it  serve  ; 


2  14  The  Altar  Fire 

the  one  empties,  the  other   fills  ;   the  one  ab- 
stracts, the  other  concentrates. ' ' 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  this,  and  it  is 
manfully  put.  Where  it  fails  is,  I  think,  in  as- 
suming an  amount  of  will-power  and  resolution 
in  human  character,  which  I  suspect  is  not  there. 
The  system  the  writer  recommends  is  a  system 
that  a  strong  character  instinctively  practises, 
moving  through  sentiment  to  emotion,  naturally, 
and  by  a  sturdy  growth.  But  to  tell  a  man  to 
feel  more  in  a  thing,  is  like  telling  a  man  to  be 
intelligent,  benevolent,  wise.  It  is  just  what  no 
one  can  do.  The  various  grades  of  emotion  are 
not  things  like  examinations,  in  which  one  can 
successively  graduate.  They  are  expressions  of 
temperament.  The  sentimental  man  is  the  man 
who  can  go  thus  far  and  no  farther.  How  shall 
one  acquire  vigour  and  generosity  ?  By  behaving 
as  if  one  was  vigorous  and  generous,  when  one  is 
neither  ?  I  do  not  think  it  can  be  done  in  that 
way.  One  can  do  something  to  check  a  ten- 
dency, very  little  to  deepen  it.  What  the  writer 
calls  false  asceticism  is  the  only  brave  and  whole- 
some refuge  of  people,  who  know  themselves  well 
enough  to  know  that  they  cannot  trust  them- 
selves.    Take  the  case  of  one's  relations  with 


Sentiment  215 

other  people.  If  a  man  drifts  into  sentimental 
relations  with  other  people,  attracted  by  charm  of 
any  kind,  and  knowing  quite  well  that  the  rela- 
tion is  built  on  charm,  and  that  he  will  not  be 
able  to  follow  it  into  truer  regions,  I  think  he  had 
probably  better  try  to  keep  himself  in  check,  not 
embrace  a  sentimental  relation  with  a  mild  hope 
that  it  may  develop  into  a  real  devotion.  The 
strong  man  may  try  experiments,  even  though  he 
bums  his  fingers.  The  weak  man  had  better  not 
meddle  with  the  instruments  and  fiery  fluids  at 
all. 

I  am  myself  just  strong  enough  to  dislike 
sentiment,  to  turn  faint  in  the  sickly,  mawkish 
air.  But  I  am  not  strong  enough  to  charge  it 
with  vivid  life.  Moreover,  the  danger  of  a  strong 
character  taking  up  the  anti- ascetic  position  is  that 
he  is  apt  to  degenerate  into  a  man  like  Goethe, 
who  plucked  the  fragrant  blooms  on  every  side, 
and  threw  them  relentlessly  away  when  he  had 
inhaled  their  sweetness.  That  is  a  cruel  busi- 
ness, unless  there  is  a  very  wise  and  tender  heart 
behind. 

Yet  again,  reconsidering  the  whole  problem,  I 
am  not  sure  that  the  whole  suggestion,  taken  as 
advice,  is  not  at  fault.     I  think  it  is  making  a 


2i6  The  Altar  Fire 

melancholy,  casuistical,  ethical  business  out  of 
what  ought  to  be  a  natural  process.  I  think  it 
is  vitiated  by  a  principle  which  vitiates  so  much 
of  the  advice  of  moralists,  the  principle  that 
one  ought  to  aim  at  completeness  and  perfection. 
I  don't  believe  that  is  the  secret  of  life — indeed 
I  think  it  is  all  the  other  way.  One  must  of 
course  do  one's  best  to  resist  immoral,  low, 
sensuous  tendencies ;  but  otherwise  I  believe 
that  one  ought  to  drink  as  much  as  one's  glass 
can  hold  of  pure  and  beautiful  influences.  If 
sentiment  is  the  nearest  that  a  man  can  come 
to  emotion,  I  think  he  had  better  take  it  thank- 
fully. It  is  this  ethical  prudence  which  is  always 
weighing  issues,  and  pulling  up  the  plant  to  see 
how  it  grows,  which  is  the  weakening  and  the 
stunting  thing.  Of  course  any  principle  can  be 
used  sophistically  ;  but  I  think  that  many  people 
commit  a  kind  of  idolatry  by  worshipping  their 
rules  and  principles  rather  than  by  trusting  God. 
It  develops  a  larger  and  freer  life,  if  one  is 
not  too  cautious,  too  precise.  Of  course  one 
must  follow  what  light  one  has,  and  all  lights 
are  lit  from  God  ;  but  if  one  watches  the  lanterns 
of  moralists  too  anxiously,  one  may  forget  the 
stars. 


The  Social  Problem  217 

July  8,  1889. 
I  lose  myself  sometimes  in  a  dream  of  misery 
in  thinking  of  the  baseness  and  meanness  and 
squalor  that  condition  the  lives  of  so  many  of  the 
poor.  Not  that  it  is  not  possible  under  those 
conditions  to  live  lives  of  simplicity  and  dignity 
and  beauty.  It  is  perfectly  possible,  but  only,  I 
think,  for  strong  natures  possessing  a  combination 
of  qualities — virtue,  industry,  sense,  prudence, 
and  above  all  good  physical  health.  There  must 
still  be  thousands  of  lives  which  could  be  happy 
and  simple  and  virtuous  under  more  secure  con- 
ditions, which  are  marred  and  degraded  by  the 
influences  under  which  they  are  nurtured.  Yet 
what  can  the  more  fortunate  individual  do  in  the 
matter  ?  If  all  the  rich  men  in  England  were  to 
resign  to-morrow  all  the  wealth  thej^  possessed, 
reserving  only  a  bare  modicum  of  subsistence,  the 
matter  could  not  be  amended.  Even  that  wealth 
could  not  be  wisely  applied  ;  and,  if  equally 
divided,  it  would  hardly  make  any  appreciable 
difference.  What  is  worse,  it  would  not  alter  the 
baneful  influences  in  the  least ;  it  would  give  no 
increased  security  of  material  conditions,  and  it 
would  not  affect  the  point  at  issue,  namely,  the 
tone  and  quality  of  thought  and  feeling,  where 


2i8  The  Altar  Fire 

the  only  hope  of  real  amelioration  lies,  and  which 
is  really  the  source  and  root  of  our  social  evils. 

Moreover,  the  real  difficulty  is  not  to  see  what 
the  classes  on  whom  the  problem  presses  most 
grimly  need,  but  what  they  want.  It  is  no  use 
theorising  about  it,  and  providing  elegant  re- 
medies which  will  not  touch  the  evil.  What  one 
requires  to  know  is  what  those  natures,  who  lie 
buried  in  this  weltering  tide,  and  are  dissatisfied 
and  tormented  by  it,  really  desire.  It  is  no  use 
trying  to  provide  a  paradise  on  the  farther  bank 
of  the  river,  till  we  have  constructed  bridges  to 
cross  the  gulf.  What  one  wants  is  that  some  one 
from  the  darkness  of  the  other  side  should  speak 
articulately  and  boldly  what  they  claim,  what 
they  could  use.  It  is  not  enough  to  have  a  wist- 
ful cry  for  help  ringing  in  our  ears  ;  one  wants  a 
philosophical  or  statesmanlike  demand — just  the 
very  thing  which  from  the  nature  of  the  case  we 
cannot  get.  It  may  be  that  education  will  make 
this  possible ;  but  at  present  education  seems 
merely  to  be  a  ladder  let  down  into  the  abyss, 
by  which  a  few  stronger  natures  can  climb  out  of 
it,  with  horror  and  contempt  in  their  hearts  of 
what  they  have  left  behind.  The  question  that 
stares  one  in  the  face  is,  is  there  honest  work  for 


The  Social  Problem  219 

all  to  do,  if  all  were  strong  and  virtuous  ?  The 
answer  at  present  seems  to  be  in  the  negative ; 
and  the  problem  seems  to  be  solved  only  by  the 
fact  that  all  are  not  capable  of  honest  work,  and 
that  the  weaklings  give  the  strong  their  oppor- 
tunity. What,  again,  one  asks  oneself,  is  the 
use  of  contriving  more  leisure  for  those  who 
could  not  use  it  well  ?  Then,  too,  under  present 
conditions,  the  survival  of  the  unfittest  seems  to 
be  assured.  Those  breed  most  freely  and  reck- 
lessly of  whom  it  may  be  said  that,  for  the  in- 
terests of  civilisation,  it  is  least  desirable  that 
they  should  perpetuate  their  kind.  The  problem 
too  is  so  complicated,  that  it  requires  a  gigantic 
faith  in  a  reformer  to  suggest  the  sowing  of  seed 
of  which  he  can  never  hope  to  see  the  fruit.  The 
situation  is  one  which  tends  to  develop  vehement 
and  passionate  prophets,  dealing  in  vague  and 
remote  generalisations,  when  what  one  needs  is 
practical  prudence,  and  the  efifective  power  of 
foreseeing  contingencies.  One  who  like  myself 
loves  security,  leisure,  beauty,  and  peace,  and  is 
actuated  by  a  vague  and  benevolent  wish  that  all 
should  have  the  same  opportunities  as  myself, 
feels  himself  a  mere  sentimentalist  in  the  matter, 
without  a  single  effective  quality.     I  can  see  the 


220  The  Altar  Fire 

problem,  I  can  grieve  over  it,  I  can  feel  my 
faith  in  God  totter  under  the  weight  of  it,  but 
that  is  all. 

July  15,  1889. 

One  of  the  hardest  things  to  face  in  the  world 
is  the  grim  fact  that  our  power  of  self-improve- 
ment is  limited.  Of  some  qualities  we  do  not 
even  possess  the  germs.  Some  qualities  we  have 
in  minute  quantities,  but  hardly  capable  of  de- 
velopment ;  some  few  qualities  we  possess  in 
fuller  measure,  and  they  are  capable  of  develop- 
ment ;  but  even  so,  our  total  capacity  of  growth  is 
limited,  conditioned  by  our  vital  energy,  and  we 
have  to  face  the  fact  that  if  we  develop  one  set  of 
qualities  we  must  neglect  another  set. 

I  think  of  it  in  a  whimsical  and  fantastic  image, 
the  best  I  can  find.  Imagine  a  box  in  which 
there  are  a  number  of  objects  like  puff-balls,  each 
with  a  certain  life  of  its  own,  half-filling  the  box. 
Some  of  the  pufif-balls  are  small,  hard,  sterile ; 
others  are  soft  and  expansive  ;  some  grow  quickly 
in  warmth  and  light,  others  fare  better  in  cold 
and  darkness.  The  process  of  growth  begins : 
some  of  them  increase  in  size  and  press  them- 
selves into  every  crevice,  enclosing  and  enfolding 


Development  221 

the  others  ;  even  so  the  growth  of  the  whole  mass 
is  conditioned  by  the  size  of  the  box,  and  when 
the  box  is  full,  the  power  of  increase  is  at  an  end. 

The  box,  to  interpret  the  fable,  is  our  character 
with  its  possibilities.  The  conditions  which  de- 
velop the  various  qualities  are  the  conditions  of 
our  lives,  our  health,  our  income,  our  education, 
the  people  who  surround  us  ;  but  even  the  qual- 
ities themselves  have  their  limitations.  Two  peo- 
ple may  grow  up  under  almost  precisely  similar 
influences,  and  yet  remain  different  to  the  end  ; 
two  characters  may  be  placed  in  difficult  and 
bracing  circumstances  ;  the  effect  upon  one  char- 
acter is  to  train  the  quality  of  self-reliance,  on  the 
other  to  produce  a  moral  collapse.  Some  people 
do  their  growing  early  and  then  stop  altogether, 
becoming  impervious  to  new  opinions  and  new  in- 
fluences.    Some  people  go  on  growing  to  the  end. 

If  one  develops  one  side  of  one's  nature,  as  the 
intellectual  or  artistic,  one  probably  suffers  on 
the  emotional  or  moral  side.  The  pain  which 
the  perceptive  man  feels  in  surveying  this  process 
is  apt  to  be  very  acute.  He  may  see  that  he  lacks 
certain  qualities  altogether  and  yet  be  unable  to 
develop  them.  He  may  find  in  himself  some 
patent  and  even  gross  fault,  and  be  unable  to  cure 


222  The  Altar  Fire 

it.  The  only  hope  for  any  of  us  is  that  we  do  not 
know  the  expansive  force  of  our  quaUties,  nor  the 
size  of  the  box  ;  and  therefore  it  is  reasonable  to 
go  on  trying  and  desiring  ;  and  as  long  as  one 
can  do  that,  it  is  clear  that  there  is  still  room  for 
growth.  The  worst  shadow  of  all  is  to  find,  as 
one  goes  on,  a  certain  indifference  creeping  over 
one.  One  accepts  a  fault  as  a  part  of  one's 
nature ;  one  ceases  to  care  about  what  appears  un- 
attainable. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  is  a  fatalistic  theory, 
and  leads  to  a  mild  inactivity  ;  but  the  question 
rather  is  whether  it  is  true,  whether  it  is  attested 
by  experience.  One  improves,  not  by  overlook- 
ing facts,  in  however  generous  and  enthusiastic 
a  spirit,  but  by  facing  facts,  and  making  the  best 
use  one  can  of  them.  One  must  resolutely  try  to 
submit  oneself  to  favourable  conditions,  fertilising 
influences.  And  much  more  must  one  do  that  in 
the  case  of  those  for  whom  one  is  responsible. 
In  the  case  of  my  own  two  children,  for  instance, 
my  one  desire  is  to  surround  them  with  the  best 
influences  I  can.  Kven  there  one  makes  mis- 
takes, no  doubt,  because  one  cannot  test  the 
expansive  power  of  their  qualities  ;  but  one  can 
observe  the  conditions  under  which  they  seem  to 


Influences  223 

develop  best,  and  apply  them.  To  lavish  love 
and  tenderness  on  some  children  serves  to  con- 
centrate their  thoughts  upon  themselves,  and 
makes  them  expect  to  find  all  difficulties  smoothed 
away  ;  on  other  more  generous  natures,  it  pro- 
duces a  glow  of  responsive  gratitude  and  affec- 
tion, a  desire  to  fulfil  the  hopes  formed  of  them 
by  those  who  love  them.  The  most  difficult 
cases  of  all  are  the  cases  of  temperaments  without 
loyal  affection,  but  with  much  natural  charm. 
Those  are  the  people  who  get  what  is  called 
"  spoilt,"  because  it  is  so  much  easier  to  believe  in 
the  existence  of  qualities  which  are  superficially 
displayed  than  in  qualities  which  lie  too  deep  for 
facile  expression.  One  comes  across  cases  of 
children  of  intense  emotional  natures,  and  very 
little  power  of  expressing  their  feelings,  or  of 
showing  their  affection.  Of  course,  too,  example 
is  far  more  potent  than  precept,  and  it  is  very  dif- 
ficult for  parents  to  simulate  a  high-mindedness 
and  an  affectionateness  that  they  do  not  them- 
selves possess,  even  if  they  are  sincerely  anxious 
that  their  children  should  grow  up  high-minded 
and  affectionate.  One  of  the  darkest  shadows  of 
my  present  condition  is  the  fear  that  any  revelation 
of  my  own  weakness  and  emptiness  may  discourage 


224  The  Altar  Fire 

and  distort  my  children's  characters ;  and  the 
watchfulness  which  this  requires  increases  the 
strain  under  which  I  suffer,  because  it  is  a  hard 
fact  that  an  example  set  for  a  noble  and  an 
unselfish  motive  is  not  nearly  so  potent  as  an 
example  set  naturally,  sweetly,  and  generously, 
with  no  particular  consciousness  of  motive  behind 
it  at  all. 

July  i8,  1889. 
I  have  just  heard  of  the  sudden  death  of  an  old 
friend.  Francis  Willett  was  a  writer  of  some  dis- 
tinction, whose  acquaintance  I  made  in  my  first 
years  in  lyondon.  He  was  a  tall,  slim  man,  dark 
of  complexion,  who  would  have  been  called  very 
handsome,  if  it  had  not  been  for  a  rather  bur- 
dened air  that  he  wore.  As  it  was,  people  tended 
rather  to  pity  him,  and  to  speak  of  him  as  some- 
what of  a  mystery.  I  never  knew  anything 
about  the  background  of  his  life.  He  must  have 
had  some  small  means  of  his  own,  and  he  lived 
in  rooms,  in  rather  an  out-of-the-way  street  near 
Regent's  Park.  One  used  to  see  him  occasionally 
in  London,  walking  rapidly,  almost  always  alone, 
and  very  rarely  I  encountered  him  at  parties, 
always  wearing  a  slightly  regretful  air,  as  though 


Francis  Willett  225 

he  were  wishing  himself  away.  He  wrote  a  good 
deal,  reviewed  books,  and,  I  suppose,  contrived  to 
make  enough  to  live  on  by  his  pen.  He  once 
spoke  of  himself  as  being  in  the  happy  position 
of  being  able  to  exist  without  writing,  but  forced 
to  purchase  all  small  luxuries  by  work.  He  pub- 
lished two  or  three  books  of  short  stories  and 
sketches  of  travel,  delicate  pieces  of  work,  which 
had  no  great  sale,  but  gave  him  a  recognised 
position  among  men  of  letters.  I  drifted  into  a 
kind  of  friendship  with  him  ;  we  were  members 
of  the  same  club,  and  he  sometimes  used  to 
flutter  shyly  into  my  rooms  like  a  great  moth  ; 
but  he  never  asked  me  to  his  quarters. 

I  discovered  that  he  had  done  well  at  Oxford, 
and  also  that  he  had  once,  at  all  events,  had 
numerous  ambitions ;  but  his  health  was  not  strong, 
he  was  extremely  sensitive,  and  very  fastidious 
about  the  quality  of  his  work.  I  realised  this  on 
an  occasion  when  he  once  entrusted  me  with  a 
MS.,  and  asked  me  if  I  would  give  him  an  opin- 
ion, as  it  was  an  experiment,  and  he  did  not  feel 
sure  of  his  ground  ;  he  added  that  there  was  no 
hurry  about  it.  I  put  the  MS.  away  in  a  despatch - 
box,  and  having  at  the  time  a  press  of  work,  I 
forgot  about  it.     He  never  asked  me  for  it,  and 

«5 


2  26  The  Altar  Fire 

I  did  not  happen  to  open  the  box  where  it 
lay.  Some  months  after  I  came  upon  it.  I  read 
it  through,  and  thought  it  a  fine  and  delicate 
piece  of  work.  I  wrote  to  him,  apologising  for 
my  delay  and  speaking  warmly  of  the  piece, 
which  was  one  of  those  rather  uncomfortable  sto- 
ries, which  is  not  quite  long  enough  to  make  a 
book,  and  yet  rather  too  long  to  put  in  a  volume 
with  other  pieces.  He  wrote  at  once,  thanking 
me  for  my  opinion,  and  it  was  only  by  accident 
at  a  later  date,  when  I  happened  to  ask  him  what 
he  was  doing  with  the  story,  that  he  told  me  he 
had  destroyed  it.  I  expressed  deep  regret  that  he 
had  done  so  ;  and  he  said  with  a  smile  that  it  was 
probably  rather  a  foolish  impulse  that  had  decided 
him  to  make  away  with  it.  ' '  The  fact  is, ' '  he 
said,  "  that  you  wrote  very  kindly  about  it,  but 
you  had  hgid  it  in  your  hands  so  long,  that  I  felt 
somehow  that  it  could  not  have  interested  you — 
it  really  doesn't  matter,"  he  added,  "I  don't 
think  it  was  at  all  successful."  I  apologised  very 
humbly,  and  explained  the  circumstances.  ' '  Oh, 
please  don't  blame  yourself  in  any  way,"  he  said, 
' '  I  have  not  the  least  shadow  of  resentment 
in  my  mind  about  it.  There  is  something 
wrong  about  my  work ;  it  does  n't  interest  peo- 


Francis  Willett  227 

pie.  I  suppose  it  is  that  I  can't  let  myself  go." 
An  interesting  conversation  followed,  and  he  told 
me  more  than  he  ever  told  me  before  or  since 
about  himself.  He  confessed  to  being  so  critical 
of  his  own  work,  that  his  table-drawers  were  full 
of  unfinished  MSS.  His  usual  experience  was 
to  begin  a  piece  of  work  enthusiastically  ;  to  plan 
it  all  out,  and  to  work  at  first  with  zest.  *'  Then 
it  begins  to  get  all  out  of  shape,"  he  said,  "  there 
is  no  go  about  it ;  it  all  loses  itself  in  subtleties 
and  complexities  of  motive ;  one  thing  trips  up 
another,  and  at  last  it  all  gets  so  tangled  that  I 
put  it  aside  ;  if  I  could  follow  the  track  of  one 
strong  and  definite  emotion,  it  would  be  all  right 
—but  I  am  like  the  man  in  the  story  who  changes 
the  cow  for  the  horse,  and  the  horse  for  the  pig, 
and  the  pig  for  the  grindstone ;  and  then  the 
grindstone  rolls  into  the  river."  He  seemed  to 
take  it  all  very  philosophically,  and  I  ventured  to 
say  so.  *'  Yes,"  he  said,  **  I  have  learnt  at  last 
that  that  is  how  I  am  made  ;  but  I  have  been 
through  a  good  many  agonies  of  disgust  and  dis- 
couragement about  it  in  old  days — it  is  the  same 
with  everything  that  I  have  touched.  The  bits 
of  work  that  I  have  completed  have  all  been  done 
in  a  rush — if  the  mood  lasts  long  enough,  I  am 


228  The  Altar  Fire 

all  right — and  once  or  twice  it  has  just  lasted. 
I  am  like  a  swimmer,"  he  went  on,  "  who  can 
only  swim  a  certain  distance  ;  and  if  I  judge  the 
distance  rightly,  I  can  reach  the  point  I  desire  to 
reach  ;  but  I  generally  judge  the  distance  wrong  ; 
and  half-way  across  I  am  seized  with  a  sudden 
fright  and  struggle  back  in  terror. ' ' 

By  one  of  the  strange  coincidences  that  some- 
times happen  in  this  world,  I  took  an  unknown 
lady  in  to  dinner  a  few  days  afterwards,  and 
happened  to  mention  Willett's  name.  *'  Do  you 
know  him  ?  "  she  said.     "  Oh  yes,  of  course  you 

do  !  "  she  went  on  ;  '  *  you  are  the  Mr.  S of 

whom  he  has  spoken  to  me."  I  found  that  my 
neighbour  was  a  distant  relation  of  Willett's,  and 
she  told  me  a  good  deal  about  him.  He  was 
absolutely  alone  in  the  world ;  he  had  been  left 
an  orphan  at  an  early  age,  and  had  spent  his  holi- 
days with  guardians  and  relations,  with  any  one 
who  would  take  pity  on  him.  "  He  was  a  clever 
kind  of  boy,"  she  said, '  *  melancholy  and  diffident, 
always  thinking  that  people  disliked  him.  He 
used  to  give  me  the  air  of  a  person  who  was  try- 
ing to  find  something,  and  who  did  not  quite 
know  where  to  look  for  it.  He  had  a  time  of  ex- 
pansion at  Oxford,  where  he  made  friends  and  did 


Francis  Willett  229 

well ;  and  then  he  came  to  London,  and  began 
to  write.  But  the  real  tragedy  of  his  life  is  this,'* 
she  said.  '*  He  really  fell  in  love,  or  as  nearly 
as  he  could,  with  a  very  pretty  and  high-spirited 
girl,  who  took  a  great  fancy  to  him,  and  pitied 
him  from  the  bottom  of  her  heart.  For  five  years 
the  thing  went  on.  She  would  have  married 
him  at  any  time  if  he  had  asked  her.  But  he 
did  not.  I  suppose  he  could  not  face  the  idea  of 
being  married.  He  always  seemed  to  be  on  the 
point  of  proposing  to  her,  and  then  he  would  lose 
heart  at  the  last  minute.  At  last  she  got  tired  of 
waiting,  and,  I  suppose,  began  to  care  for  some 
one  else  ;  but  she  was  very  good  to  Francis, 
and  never  lost  patience  with  him.  At  last  she 
told  him  one  day  quietly  that  she  was  engaged, 
and  hoped  that  they  would  always  remain  friends. 
I  think,  do  you  know,  that  it  was  almost  a  relief 
to  him  than  otherwise.  I  did  my  best  to  help 
him — marriage  was  the  one  thing  he  wanted  ;  if 
he  could  only  have  been  pushed  into  it,  he  would 
have  made  a  perfect  husband,  because  not  only 
is  he  very  much  of  a  gentleman,  but  he  could 
never  bear  to  fail  any  one  who  depended  on  him  ; 
but  he  has  got  the  unhappiest  mind  I  know  ;  the 
moment  that  he  has  formed  a  plan,  and  sees  his 


230  The  Altar  Fire 

way  clear,  .he  at  once  begins  to  think  of  all  the 
reasons  against  it — not  the  selfish  reasons,  by  any 
means  ;  in  this  case  he  reflected,  I  am  sure,  how 
little  he  had  to  offer  ;  he  could  not  bring  himself 
to  feel  that  any  one  could  really  care  for  him  ; 
and  then,  too,  he  never  really  cared  for  anything 
quite  enough  himself  Or  if  he  did,  he  found  all 
sorts  of  refined  reasons  why  he  ought  not  to  do 
so.  If  only  he  had  been  a  little  more  selfish,  it 
would  have  been  all  right.    Indeed,"  said  Mrs. 

T ,  with  a  smile,   "he  is  the  only  person  of 

whom  I  could  truthfully  say  that  if  he  had  only 
been  a  little  more  vulgar,  he  would  have  been  a 
much  happier  person." 

I  saw  a  good  deal  of  Willett  after  that,  and 
he  interested  me  increasingly.     I  verified  Mrs. 

T 's  judgment  about  him,  and  found  it  true  in 

every  particular.  I  suppose  there  was  some  lack 
of  vitality  about  him,  because  the  more  I  knew  of 
him  the  more  I  found  to  admire.  He  was  an 
exquisitely  delicate  person,  affectionate,  respon- 
sive, with  a  fine  sense  of  humour — indeed,  the 
most  disconcerting  thing  was  that  he  saw  to  the 
full  the  humour  of  his  own  position.  But  none 
of  the  robust  motives  that  spur  men  to  action 
affected  him.     He  was  ambitious,  but  he  would 


Francis  Willett  231 

not  make  any  sacrifices  to  gain  the  objects  of  his 
ambition.  He  could  not  use  his  powers  on  con- 
ventional lines.  He  was,  I  think,  deeply  desirous 
of  confidence  and  afiection,  but  he  could  never 
believe  that  he  deserved  either,  or  that  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  be  interesting  to  others.  He 
was  laborious,  pure-minded,  transparently  honest, 
and  had  a  shrewd  and  penetrating  judgment  of 
other  people ;  but  he  seemed  to  labour  under  a 
sense  of  shame  at  his  deficiencies,  and  to  feel  that 
he  had  no  claims  or  rights  in  the  world.  He 
existed  on  sufferance.  The  smallest  shadow  of 
disapproval  caused  him  to  abandon  any  design, 
not  resentfully  but  eagerly,  as  though  he  was 
fully  aware  of  his  own  incompetence. 

I  grew  to  feel  a  strong  affection  for  him,  and 
tried  in  many  ways  to  help  and  encourage  him. 
But  he  always  discounted  encouragement,  and  it 
is  a  clumsy  business  trying  to  help  a  man  who 
does  not  demand  or  desire  help. 

He  seemed  to  me  to  have  schooled  himself  into 
a  kind  of  tender  patience  ;  and  this  attitude,  I  am 
ashamed  to  say,  used  to  irritate  me  considerably, 
because  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  so  much  power 
wasted  on  accepting  defeat,  which  might  have 
ensured  victory. 


232  The  Altar  Fire 

He  was  with  me  a  few  weeks  ago.  I  was  up 
in  town,  and  he  dined  with  me  by  appointment. 
He  told  me,  with  a  gentle  philosophy,  a  story 
which  made  my  blood  boil.  He  had  been  asked 
to  write  a  book  by  a  publisher,  and  the  lines  had 
been  laid  down  for  him.  **  It  was  such  a  comfort 
to  me,"  he  said,  "because  it  supplied  just  the 
stimulus  I  could  not  myself  originate.  My  book 
was  really  rather  a  good  piece  of  work ;  but  a 
week  ago  I  sent  it  to  the  publisher,  and  he  re- 
turned it,  saying  it  was  not  the  least  what  he 
wanted — he  suggested  my  retaining  about  a  third 
of  it,  and  rewriting  the  rest.  Of  course  I  could 
do  nothing  of  the  kind. "  "  What  have  you  done 
with  it  ?  "  I  asked.  ''  Oh,  I  have  destroyed  it." 
''But  did  n't  you  see  him,"  I  said,  *'  or  do  some- 
thing— or  at  all  events  insist  on  payment  ?  ' ' 
**0h  no,"  he  said,  "I  could  not  do  that— the 
man  was  probably  right — he  wanted  a  particular 
kind  of  book,  and  mine  was  not  what  he  wanted. 
I  did  say  that  I  wished  he  had  explained  to  me 
more  clearly  what  he  wanted— but  after  all  it 
doesn't  very  much  matter.  I  can  get  along  all 
right,  if  I  am  careful." 

"  Well,"  I  said,  "you  are  really  a  very  aggra- 
vating person.     If  I  could  not  have  got  my  book 


Francis  Willett  233 

published  elsewhere,  I  would  certainly  have  had 
a  row— I  would  have  taken  out  my  money's 
worth  in  vituperation." 

Willett  smiled  ;  *'  I  dare  say  you  would  have 
had  some  fun,"  he  said,  '*but  that  is  not  my 
line.  I  have  told  you  before  that  I  can't  interest 
people — I  don't  think  it  is  wholly  my  fault." 

We  sat  late,  talking  ;  and  for  the  only  time  in 
his  life  he  spoke  to  me,  with  a  depth  of  emotion 
of  which  I  should  hardly  have  suspected  him,  of 
the  value  he  set  upon  my  friendship,  and  his 
gratitude  for  my  sympathy. 

And  now  this  morning  I  have  heard  of  his 
sudden  death.  He  was  found  dead  in  his  room, 
bent  over  his  papers.  He  must  have  been  writing 
late  at  night,  as  his  custom  was :  and  it  proved 
on  examination  that  he  must  have  long  suffered 
from  an  unsuspected  disease  of  the  heart.  Per- 
haps that  may  explain  his  failure,  if  it  can  be 
called  a  failure.  There  is  something  to  me  almost 
insupportably  pathetic  to  think  of  his  lonely  and 
uncomforted  life,  his  isolation,  his  sensitiveness. 
And  yet  I  do  not  feel  sure  that  it  is  pathetic, 
because  his  life  somehow  seems  to  me  to  have 
been  one  of  the  most  beautiful  I  hav^e  ever  known. 
He  did  nothing  much  for  others,  he  achieved 


234  The  Altar  Fire 

nothing  for  himself;  but  it  is  only  our  miserable 
habit  of  weighing  every  one's  life,  in  a  hard  way, 
by  a  standard  of  performance  and  success,  which 
makes  one  sigh  over  Francis  Willett's  life.  It  is 
very  difficult  at  times  to  see  what  it  is  that  life  is 
exactly  meant  to  do  for  us.  Most  of  the  men  and 
women  I  know — I  say  this  sadly  but  frankly — 
seem  to  me  to  leave  the  world  worse,  in  essential 
respects,  than  they  entered  it.  There  is  generally 
something  ingenuous,  responsive,  eager,  sweet, 
hopeful  about  a  child — but  though  I  admit  that 
one  does  encounter  beautiful  natures  that  seem  to 
flower  very  generously  in  the  light  of  experience, 
yet  most  people  grow  dull,  dreary,  conventional, 
grasping,  commonplace — they  grow  to  think 
rather  contemptuously  of  emotion  and  generosity 
— they  think  it  weak  to  be  amiable,  unselfish, 
kind.  They  become  fond  of  comfort  and  position 
and  respect  and  money.  They  think  such  things 
the  serious  concerns  of  life,  and  sentiment  a  kind 
of  relaxation.  But  with  Willett  it  was  the  precise 
reverse.  He  claimed  nothing  for  himself,  he 
never  profited  at  the  expense  of  another  ;  he  was 
utterly  humble,  gentle,  unpretentious,  kind,  sin- 
cere. An  hour  ago  I  should  have  called  him 
"poor  fellow,"  and  wished  that  he  had  had  a 


Francis  Willett  235 

more  robust  kind  of  fibre  ;  now  that  I  know  lie  is 
dead,  I  cannot  find  it  in  my  heart  to  wish  him 
any  such  qualities.  His  life  appears  to  me  utterly 
beautiful  and  fragrant.  He  never  incurred  any 
taint  of  grossness  from  prosperity  or  success  ;  he 
never  grew  indiflferent  or  hard  ;  and  in  the  light 
of  his  last  passage,  such  a  failure  seems  the  one 
thing  worth  achieving,  and  to  carry  with  it  a 
hope  all  alive  and  rich  with  possibilities  of 
blessing  and  glory.  He  would  hardly  have 
called  himself  a  Christian,  I  think  ;  he  would 
have  said  that  he  could  not  have  attained  to  any- 
thing like  a  vital  faith  or  a  hopeful  certainty ; 
but  the  only  words  and  thoughts  that  haunt  my 
mind  about  him,  echoing  sweetly  and  softly 
through  the  ages,  are  the  words  in  which  Christ 
described  the  tender  spirits  of  those  who  were 
nearest  to  the  Father's  heart,  and  to  whom  it  is 
given  to  see  God. 

July  2^,  1889. 
Health  of  body  and  mind  return  to  me, 
slowly  but  surely.  I  have  given  up  all  attempt 
at  writing  ;  I  rack  my  brain  no  longer  for  plots 
or  situations.  I  keep,  it  is  true,  my  note-book 
for  subjects  beside  me,  and  occasionally  jot  down 


236  The  Altar  Fire 

a  point ;  but  I  feel  entirely  indifferent  to  the 
whole  thing.  Meanwhile  the  flood  of  letters 
about  my  book,  invitations  from  editors,  offers 
from  publishers,  continues  to  flow.  I  reply  to 
these  benignantly  and  courteously,  but  undertake 
nothing,  promise  nothing.  I  seem  to  have  re- 
covered my  balance.  I  think  no  more  about  my 
bodily  complaints,  and  my  nerves  no  longer  sting 
and  thrill.  The  day  is  hardly  long  enough  for 
all  I  have  to  do.  It  may  be  that  when  the  novelty 
jf  the  experiment  in  education  wears  off,  I  shall 
begin  to  hanker  after  authorship  again.  Alec 
will  have  to  go  to  school  in  a  year  or  two,  I  sup- 
pose ;  but  it  shall  be  a  day-school  at  first,  if  I  can 
find  one.  As  to  the  question  of  public  school,  I 
am  much  exercised.  Of  course  there  are  night- 
mare terrors  about  tone  and  morals  ;  but  I  am  not 
really  very  anxious  about  the  boy,  because  he  is 
sensible  and  independent,  and  has  no  lack  of 
moral  courage.  The  vigorous  barrack-life  is 
good  for  a  boy,  the  give-and-take,  the  splendid 
equality,  the  manly  code,  the  absence  of  affecta- 
tion. But  the  intellectual  tone  of  schools  is  low, 
and  the  conventionality  is  great.  I  don't  want 
Alec  to  be  a  conventional  man,  and  yet  I  want 
him  to  accept  current  conventions  instinctively 


The  Public-School  Type      237 

about  matters  of  indifiference.  I  have  a  horror 
of  the  sporting  pubh'c-school  type,  the  good- 
humoured,  robust  fellow,  who  does  his  work  and 
fills  his  spare  time  with  games,  and  thinks  intel- 
lectual things,  and  artistic  interests,  and  emotion, 
and  sympathy,  moonshine  and  rot.  Such  people 
live  a  wholesome  enough  life ;  they  make  good 
soldiers,  good  oflScials,  good  men  of  business.  But 
they  are  woefully  complacent  and  self-satis- 
fied. The  schools  develop  a  Spartan  type,  and  I 
want  Alec  to  be  an  Athenian.  But  the  experi- 
ment will  have  to  be  made,  because  a  man  is  at 
a  disadvantage  in  ordinary  life  if  he  has  not  the 
public  school  bonhomie,  courtesy,  and  common 
sense.  I  must  try  to  keep  the  other  side  alive, 
and  I  don't  despair  of  doing  it. 

Meantime  we  are  a  very  contented  household, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  now,  if  ever,  is  the  time 
for  me  to  make  my  mark  as  a  writer,  and  I  have 
to  pass  all  the  opportunities  that  offer.  On  the 
other  hand,  this  is  the  point  at  which  one  sees, 
in  the  history  of  letters,  so  many  writers  go  to 
pieces.  They  suddenly  find,  after  their  first 
great  success,  that  they  have  arrived,  by  a  tortu- 
ous and  secret  path,  at  being  a  sort  of  public 
man.     They   are   dazzled   by   contact  with   the 


238  The  Altar  Fire 

world.  They  go  into  society,  they  make 
speeches,  they  write  twaddle,  they  drain  their 
energy,  already  depleted  by  creation,  in  fifty  dif- 
ferent ways.  Now  I  am  strongly  of  Ruskin's 
opinion  that  the  duty  of  the  artist  is  to  make 
himself  fit  for  the  best  society,  and  then  to  ab- 
stain from  it.  Very  fortunately  I  have  no  sort  of 
taste  for  these  things,  beyond  the  simple  human 
satisfaction  of  enjoying  consideration.  That  is 
natural  and  inevitable.  But  I  don't  value  it 
unduly,  and  I  dislike  its  penalties  Imore  than 
I  love  its  rewards. 

And  then,  too,  I  reflect  that  it  is,  after  all,  life 
that  we  are  here  to  taste,  and  life  that  so  many  of 
us  pass  by.  Work  is  a  part  of  life,  perhaps  the 
essence  of  life  ;  but  to  be  absorbed  in  work  is  to 
be  like  a  man  who  is  absorbed  in  collecting  speci- 
mens, and  never  has  time  to  sort  them.  I  knew 
of  a  man  who  determined,  early  in  life,  to  write 
the  history  of  political  institutions.  He  had  a 
great  library,  and  he  devoted  himself  to  study. 
He  put  in  his  books,  as  he  read  them,  slips  of 
paper  to  indicate  passages  and  chapters  that  he 
would  have  to  consult,  and  as  he  finished  with 
a  book,  he  put  it  in  a  certain  place  on  a  certain 
shelf.     He  made  no  other  notes  or  references — 


The  Lesson  of  Life  239 

he  was  a  man  with  a  colossal  memory,  and  he 
knew  exactly  what  his  markers  meant.  In  the 
middle  of  this  life  of  acquisition,  while  he  bored 
like  a  worm  in  a  cheese,  he  died.  His  library 
was  sold.  The  markers  meant  nothing  to  any 
one  else ;  and  the  book -buyers  merely  took  the 
markers  out  and  threw  them  away,  and  that  was 
the  end  of  the  history  of  political  institutions. 

I  feel  that,  apart  from  our  work,  we  ought  to 
try  and  arrive  at  some  solution,  to  draw  some 
sort  of  conclusions — to  reflect,  to  theorise ;  we 
may  not  draw  nearer  to  the  secret,  but  our  only 
hope  of  doing  so,  the  only  hope  that  humanity 
will  do  so,  is  for  some  at  least  to  try.  And  thus 
I  think  that  I  have  perhaps  been  saved  from  a 
great  delusion.  I  was  spending  my  time  in  spin- 
ning romances,  in  elaborating  plots,  in  manoeuv- 
ring life  as  I  would  ;  and  it  is  not  like  that.  Life 
is  not  run  on  physical  lines,  nor  on  emotional, 
nor  social,  nor  even  moral  lines.  It  is  not  man- 
aged in  the  least  as  we  should  manage  it ;  it  is  a 
resultant  of  innumerable  forces,  or  perhaps  the 
same  force  running  in  intricate  currents.  Of 
course  the  strange  thing  is  that  we  men  should 
find  ourselves  thrust  into  it,  with  strong  intui- 
tions,   vehement  preconceptions,   as  to   how    it 


240  The  Altar  Fire 

ought  to  be  directed ;  our  happiness  seems  to 
depend  upon  our  being,  or  learning  to  be,  in 
harmony  with  it,  but  it  baffles  us,  it  resists  us,  it 
contradicts  us,  it  opposes  us  to  the  end  ;  some- 
times it  crushes  us  ;  and  yet  we  beHeve  that  it 
means  good ;  and  even  if  we  do  not  so  believe, 
we  have  to  acquiesce,  we  have  to  endure ;  and 
one  thing  is  certain,  we  cannot  learn  the  lesson 
of  life  by  practising  indifference  or  stoical  forti- 
tude, or  by  abandoning  ourselves  to  despair  ;  only 
by  believing  that  our  sufferings  are  fruitful,  our 
mistakes  educative,  our  sins  significant,  our  sor- 
rows gracious,  can  we  hope  to  triumph.  We  go 
on,  many  of  us,  relying  on  useless  defences, 
beguiling  ourselves  with  fantastic  diversions, 
overlooking,  as  far  as  we  can,  stem  realities ; 
stopping  our  ears,  turning  away  our  gaze,  shrink- 
ing and  crying  out  like  children  at  the  prospect 
of  experiences  to  which  we  are  led  by  loving 
presences,  that  smile  as  they  draw  us  to  the 
wholesome  and  bracing  incidents  that  we  so 
weakly  dread.  We  pray  for  courage,  but  we 
know  in  our  souls  that  courage  can  only  be  won 
by  enduring  what  we  fear  ;  and  thus  preoccupied 
by  hopes  and  plans  and  fears,  we  miss  the  whole- 
some, sweet  and  simple  stuff  of  life,  its  quiet  re- 


A  Flash  of  Insight  241 

lationships,  its  tranquil  occupations,  its  beautiful 
and  tender  surprises. 

And  then  perhaps,  at  long  intervals,  we  have  a 
deep  and  splendid  flash  of  insight,  when  we  can 
thank  God  that  things  have  not  been  as  we 
should  have  willed  and  ordered  them.  We 
should  have  lingered,  perhaps,  in  the  low  rich 
meadows,  the  sheltered  woodlands  of  our  desire  ; 
we  should  never  have  set  our  feet  to  the  hill.  In 
terror  and  reluctance  we  have  wandered  upwards 
among  the  steep  mountain  tracks,  by  high  green 
slopes,  by  grim  crag-buttresses,  through  fields  of 
desolate  stones.  Yet  we  are  aware  of  a  finer, 
purer  air,  of  wide  prospects  of  hill  and  plain  ;  we 
feel  that  we  have  gained  in  strength  and  vigour, 
that  our  perceptions  are  keener,  our  very  enjoy- 
ment nobler ;  and  at  last,  it  may  be,  we  have 
sight,  from  some  Pisgah-top  of  hope,  of  fairer 
lands  yet  to  which  we  are  surely  bound.  And 
then,  too,  though  we  have  fared  on  in  loneliness 
and  isolation,  we  see  moving  forms  of  friends  and 
comrades  converging  on  our  track.  It  is  no 
dream  ;  it  is  but  a  parable  of  what  has  happened 
to  many  a  soul,  what  is  daily  happening.  What 
does  the  sad,  stained,  weary,  fitful  past  concern 
us  at  such  a  moment   as    this  ?     It  concerns  us 


242  The  Altar  Fire 

nothing,  save  that  only  through  its  pains  and 
shadows  was  it  possible  for  us  to  climb  where  we 
have  climbed. 

To-day  it  seems  that  I  have  been  blessed  with 
such  a  vision.  The  mist  will  close  in  again, 
doubtless,  wild  with  wind,  chill  with  rain,  sad 
with  the  cry  of  hoarse  streams.  But  I  have 
seen  !  I  shall  be  weary  and  regretful  and  de- 
spairing many  times ;  but  I  shall  never  wholly 
doubt  again. 

August  8,  1889. 
Alec  is  ill  to-day.  He  w^as  restless,  flushed, 
feverish,  yesterday  evening,  and  I  thought  he 
must  have  caught  cold  ;  we  put  him  to  bed,  and 
this  morning  we  sent  for  the  doctor.  He  says 
there  is  no  need  for  anxiety,  but  he  does  not 
know  as  yet  what  is  the  matter ;  his  temperature 
is  high,  and  we  must  just  keep  him  quietly  in 
bed,  and  wait.  I  tell  myself  that  it  is  foolish  to 
be  anxious,  but  I  cannot  keep  a  certain  dread  out 
of  my  mind  ;  there  is  a  weight  upon  my  heart, 
which  seems  unduly  heavy.  Perhaps  it  is  only 
that  it  seems  unusual,  for  he  has  never  had  an 
illness  of  any  kind.  He  is  not  to  be  disturbed, 
and  Maggie  is  not  allowed  to  see  him.     Maud 


A  Shadow  of  Fear  243 

sate  with  him  this  morning,  and  he  slept  most  of 
the  time.  I  looked  in  once  or  twice,  but  people 
coming  and  going  tend  to  make  him  restless. 
Maud  herself  is  a  marvel  to  me.  She  must  be 
even  more  anxious  than  I  am,  but  she  is  serene, 
smiling,  strong,  with  a  cheerfulness  that  has  no 
effort  about  it.  She  laughed  tenderly  at  my  fears, 
and  sent  me  out  for  a  walk  with  Maggie.  I  fear 
I  was  a  gloomy  companion.  In  the  evening  I 
went  to  sit  with  Alec  a  little.  He  was  wakeful, 
large-eyed,  and  restless.  He  lay  with  a  book  of 
stories  from  Homer,  of  which  he  is  very  fond, 
in  one  hand,  the  other  clasping  his  black  kitten, 
which  slept  peacefully  on  the  counterpane.  He 
wanted  to  talk,  but  to  keep  him  quiet  I  told  him 
a  long  trivial  story,  full  of  unexciting  incidents. 
He  lay  musing,  his  head  on  his  hand  ;  then  he 
seemed  inclined  to  sleep,  so  I  sate  beside  him, 
watching  and  wondering  at  the  nearness  and  the 
dearness  of  the  child  to  me,  almost  amazed  at 
the  revelation  which  this  shadow  of  fear  gives  me 
of  the  place  which  he  fills  in  my  heart  and  life. 
He  tossed  about  for  some  time,  and  when  I  asked 
him  if  he  wanted  anything,  he  only  put  his  hand 
in  mine  ;  a  gesture  not  quite  like  him,  as  he  is  a 
boy  who  is  averse  to  personal  caresses  or  signs  of 


244  The  Altar  Fire 

emotion.  So  I  drew  my  chair  up  to  the  bed,  and 
sate  there  with  the  little  hot  hand  in  my  own. 
Maud  came  up  presently  ;  but  as  he  now  seemed 
sound  asleep,  we  left  him  in  the  care  of  the  old 
nurse,  and  went  down  to  dinner.  If  we  only 
knew  what  was  the  matter  !  I  argue  with  myself 
how  much  unnecessary  misery  I  give  myself  by 
anticipating  evil ;  but  I  cannot  help  it ;  and  the 
weight  on  my  mind  grew  heavier  ;  half  the  night 
I  lay  awake,  till  at  last,  from  sheer  weariness,  I 
fell  into  a  sort  of  stupor  of  the  senses,  which  fled 
from  me  in  the  dismal  dawn,  and  the  unmanning 
hideous  fear  leapt  on  me  out  of  the  dark,  like  a 
beast  leaping  upon  its  prey. 

August  II,  1889. 
I  cannot  and  dare  not  write  of  these  days.  The 
child  is  very  ill ;  it  is  some  obscure  inflammation 
of  the  brain-tissue.  I  had  an  insupportable  fear 
that  it  might  have  resulted  in  some  way  from 
being  over- pressed  in  the  matter  of  work,  over- 
stimulated.  I  asked  the  doctor.  If  he  lied  to 
me,  and  I  do  not  think  he  did,  he  lied  like  a  man, 
or  an  angel.  "■  Not  in  the  least,"  he  said,  "  it  is 
a  constitutional  thing  ;  in  fact,  I  may  say  that  the 
rational  and  healthy  life  the  child  has  lived  will 


Alecs  Illness  245 

help  more  than  anything  to  pull  him  through." 
But  I  can't  write  of  the  days.  I  sleep,  half- 
conscious  of  my  misery.  I  suppose  I  eat,  walk, 
read.  But  waking  is  like  the  waking  of  a  prisoner 
who  wakes  up  to  be  put  on  the  rack,  who  hears 
doors  open  and  feet  approach,  and  sickens  with 
dread  as  he  lies.  God's  hand  is  heavy  upon  me 
day  and  night.  Surely  nothing,  in  the  world  or 
out  of  it,  can  obliterate  the  memory  of  this 
suffering ;  perhaps,  if  Alec  is  given  back  to  us, 
I  shall  smile  at  this  time  of  suffering.  But,  if 
not 

August  12,  1889. 
He  is  losing  ground,  he  is  hardly  ever  con- 
scious now ;  he  sleeps  a  good  deal,  but  often  he 
talks  quietly  to  himself  of  all  that  we  have  done 
and  said ;  he  often  supposes  himself  to  be  with 
me,  and,  thank  God,  he  never  says  a  word  to 
show  that  he  has  ever  feared  or  misunderstood 
me.  I  could  not  bear  that.  Yesterday  when  I 
was  with  him,  he  opened  his  eyes  on  me  ;  I  could 
see  that  he  knew  me,  and  that  he  was  frightened. 
I  could  not  speak,  but  Maud,  who  was  with  me, 
just  took  his  hand  and  with  her  own  tranquil 
smile,  said , "  It  is  all  right.  Alec ;  there  is  nothing 


246  The  Altar  Fire 

to  be  frightened  about ;  we  are  here,  and  you 
will  soon  be  well  again."  The  child  closed  his 
eyes  and  lay  smiling  to  himself.  I  could  not 
have  done  that. 

August  13,  1889. 
He  died  this  morning,  just  at  the  dawn.  I 
knew  last  night  that  all  hope  was  over.  I  was 
with  him  half  the  night,  and  prayed,  knowing 
my  prayers  were  in  vain;  that  I  could  save  him 
no  suffering,  could  not  keep  him,  could  not  draw 
him  back.  Maud  took  my  place  at  midnight ;  I 
slept,  and  in  the  grey  dawn,  I  woke  to  find  her 
standing  with  a  candle  by  my  bed ;  I  knew  in  a 
moment,  by  a  glance,  that  the  end  was  near.  No 
word  passed  between  us  ;  I  found  Maggie  by  the 
bed ;  and  we  three  together  waited  for  the  end. 
I  had  never  seen  any  one  die.  He  was  quite 
unconscious,  breathing  slowly,  looking  just  like 
himself,  as  though  flushed  with  slumber.  At  last 
he  stirred,  gave  a  long  sigh,  and  seemed  to  settle 
himself  for  the  last  sleep.  I  do  not  know  when 
he  died,  but  I  became  aware  that  life  had  passed, 
and  that  the  little  spirit  that  we  loved  had  fled, 
God  knows  whither.  Maggie  sate  with  her  hand 
in  mine;    and  in   my  dumb   and   frozen  grief, 


My  Son,  My  Son  247 

almost  without  a  thought  of  anything  but  a  deep 
and  cold  resentment,  a  hatred  of  death  and  the 
maker  of  love  and  death  aUke,  I  became  aware 
that  both  she  and  Maud  had  me  in  their  thoughts, 
that  my  sorrow  was  even  more  to  them  than  their 
own — while  I  was  cut  off  from  them  ;  from  life 
and  hope  alike,  in  a  place  of  darkness  and  in  the 
deep. 

August  19,  1889. 
I  saw  Alec  no  more ;  I  would  remember  him 
as  he  was  in  life,  not  the  stiffened  waxen  mask 
of  my  beloved.  The  days  passed  in  a  dull  stupor 
of  grief,  mechanically,  grimly,  in  a  sort  of  ghastly 
greyness.  And  I  who  thought  that  I  had  sounded 
the  depths  of  pain  !  I  could  not  realise  it,  could 
not  believe  that  all  would  not  somehow  be  as 
before.  Maud  and  Maggie  speak  of  him  to  each 
other  and  to  me  .  .  .  it  is  inconceivable.  With 
a  dull  heartache  I  have  collected  and  put  away 
all  the  child's  things — his  books,  his  toys,  his 
little  possessions.  I  followed  the  little  coffin  to 
the  grave.  The  uncontrollable  throb  of  emotion 
came  over  me  at  the  words,  "  I  am  the  resur- 
rection and  the  life."  It  was  a  grey,  gusty  day ; 
a  silent  crowd  waited  to  see  us  pass.     The  great 


248  The  Altar  Fire 

churchyard  elms  roared  and  swayed,  and  I  found 
myself  watching  idly  how  the  clergyman's  hood 
was  blown  sideways  by  the  wind.  I  looked  into 
the  deep,  dark  pit,  and  saw  the  little  coffin  lying 
there,  all  in  a  dumb  dream.  The  holy  words 
fell  vacuously  on  my  ears.  **  Man  walketh  in  a 
vain  shadow,  and  disquieteth  himself  in  vain  " — 
that  was  all  I  felt.  I  seem  to  believe  nothing,  to 
hope  nothing.  I  do  not  believe  I  shall  ever  see 
or  draw  near  to  the  child  again,  and  yet  the 
thought  of  him  alone,  apart,  uncomforted,  lies 
cold  on  my  heart.  Maud  is  wonderful  to  me; 
her  love  does  not  seem  to  suffer  eclipse  ;  she  does 
everything,  she  smiles,  she  speaks  ;  she  feels,  she 
says,  the  presence  of  the  child  near  her  and  about 
her  ;  that  means  nothing  to  me  ;  the  soul  appears 
to  me  to  have  gone  out  utterly  like  a  blown 
flame,  mingling  with  the  unseen  life,  as  the  little 
body  we  loved  will  be  mingled  with  the  dust. 

I  cannot  say  that  I  endure  agony  ;  it  is  rather 
as  if  I  had  received  a  blow  so  fierce  that  it  drove 
sensation  away  ;  I  seem  to  see  the  bruise,  watch 
the  blood  flow,  and  w^onder  why  I  do  not  suffer. 
The  suffering  will  come,  I  doubt  not ;  but  mean- 
while I  am  only  mutely  grateful  that  I  do  not 
feel  more,  suffer  more.     It  does  not  even  seem  to 


Bereavement  249 

me  to  have  drawn  me  nearer  to  Maud,  to  Maggie  ; 
my  power  of  loving  seems  extinguished,  like 
my  power  of  suffering.  I  do  not  know  why  I 
write  in  this  book,  why  I  record  my  blank  apathy. 
It  is  a  habit,  it  passes  the  time ;  the  only 
thing  that  gives  me  any  comfort  is  the  thought 
that  I  shall  die,  too,  and  close  my  eyes  at  last 
upon  this  terrible  world,  made  so  sweet  and 
beautiful,  and  then  slashed  and  scored  across 
with  such  cruel  stripes,  where  we  pay  so  grievous 
a  penalty  for  feeling  and  loving.  Tennyson  found 
consolation  "when  he  sorrowed  most."  But  I 
say  deliberately  that  I  would  rather  not  have 
loved  my  child  than  lose  him  thus. 

August  28, 1889. 

We  are  to  go  away.  Maggie  droops  like  a 
faded  flower,  and  for  the  first  time  I  realise,  in 
trying  to  comfort  and  distract  her,  that  I  have 
not  lost  everything.  We  are  much  together,  and 
seeing  her  thus  pine  and  fade  stirs  a  dread,  in  the 
heart  that  has  been  so  cold,  that  I  may  lose  her, 
too.  At  last  we  are  drawn  together.  She  came 
to  say  good-night  to  me  last  night,  and  a  gush  of 
love  passed  through  me,  like  the  wind  stirring 
the  strings  of  a  harp  to  music.     ' '  My  precious 


250  The  Altar  Fire 

darling,  my  comfort, ' '  I  said  ;  the  words  put,  it 
seemed,  on  my  lips,  by  some  deeper  power.  She 
clung  to  me,  crying  softly.  Yet,  is  it  strange  to 
say  it,  that  simple  utterance  seems  almost  to  have 
revived  her,  to  have  given  her  pride  and  courage  ? 
But  Maud  is  still  almost  a  mystery  to  me.  Who 
can  tell  how  she  suffers — I  cannot — it  seems  to 
have  quickened  and  enriched  her  love  and  tender- 
ness ;  she  seems  to  have  a  secret  that  I  cannot 
come  near  to  sharing  ;  she  does  not  repine,  rebel, 
resist;  she  lives  in  some  region  of  unapproachable 
patience  and  love.  She  goes  daily  to  the  grave, 
but  I  cannot  visit  it  or  think  of  it.  The  sight 
of  the  church-tower  on  my  walks  gives  me  a  throb 
of  dismay.  But  now  we  are  going  away.  We 
have  been  lent  a  little  house  in  a  quiet  seaside 
place  ;  I  suppose  I  am  ill— at  least,  I  am  aware 
of  a  deep  and  unutterable  fatigue  at  times,  when 
I  can  rouse  myself  to  nothing,  but  sit  unoccupied, 
musing,  glad  to  be  alone,  and  only  dreading  the 
slightest  interruption,  the  smallest  duty.  I  know 
by  some  subtle  sense  that  I  am  seldom  absent 
from  Maud's  thoughts ;  but,  with  her  incredible 
courage  and  patience,  she  betrays  nothing  by 
word  or  glance.  She  is  absolutely  patient,  entirely 
self-forgetful ;    she  quietly  relieves  me  of  any- 


Old  Haunts  251 

thing  I  have  to  do ;  she  alters  arrangements  a 
dozen  times  a  day,  with  a  ready  smile  ;  and  yet 
it  almost  seems  to  me  as  if  I  had  lost  her,  too. 

August  30,  1889. 
Our  route  lay  through  Cambridge  ;  we  had  to 
change  there  and  wait ;  so  we  drove  down  to  the 
town  to  look  at  my  old  college.  There  it  lay,  the 
charming,  pretty,  quiet  place,  blinking  lazily  out 
of  its  deep-set  barred  windows  in  the  bright  sun, 
just  the  same,  it  seemed,  as  ever,  though  perhaps 
a  touch  more  mellow  and  more  settled  ;  every 
comer  and  staircase  haunted  with  old  ghosts  for 
me.  I  could  put  a  name  to  every  set  of  rooms, 
flash  an  incident  to  every  door  and  window.  In 
my  heavy,  apathetic  mood  the  memory  of  my  life 
there  seemed  like  a  memory  of  some  one  else, 
moving  in  golden  light,  talking  and  laughing  in 
firelit  rooms,  lingering  in  moonlit  nights  by  the 
bridge,  wondering  what  life  was  going  to  bring. 
It  seemed  like  turning  the  pages  of  some  old  il- 
luminated book  with  bright  pictures,  where  the 
very  sunlight  is  the  purest  and  stifFest  gold.  The 
men  I  knew,  the  friends  I  lived  with,  admired, 
loved— where  are  they  ?  scattered  to  all  parts  of 
the  earth,  parted  utterly  from  me,  some  of  them 


252  The  Altar  Fire 

dead,  alas  !  and  silent.  It  came  over  me  with  a 
thrill  of  sharpest  pain  to  think  how  I  had  pictured 
Alec  here,  living  the  same  free  and  beautiful  life, 
tasting  the  same  innocent  pleasures,  with  the 
bright,  sweet  world  opening  upon  him.  In  that 
calm,  sunny  afternoon,  life  seemed  a  strange 
phantasmal  business,  and  I  myself  a  revenant 
from  some  thin,  unsubstantial  world.  A  door 
opened,  and  an  old  Don,  well  known  to  me  in 
those  days,  hardly  altered,  it  seemed,  came  out 
and  trotted  across  the  court,  looking  suspiciously 
to  left  and  right  as  he  used  to  do.  Had  he  been 
doing  the  same  thing  ever  since,  reading  the 
same  books,  talking  the  same  innocent  gossip  ?  I 
had  not  the  heart  to  greet  him,  and  he  passed 
me  by  unrecognising.  We  peeped  into  the  hall 
through  the  screen.  I  could  see  where  I  used  to 
sit,  the  same  dark  pictures  looking  down.  We 
went  to  the  chapel,  with  its  noble  classical  wood- 
work, the  great  carved  panels,  the  angels'  heads, 
the  huge,  stately  reredos.  Some  one,  thank  God, 
was  playing  softly  on  the  organ,  and  we  sate  to 
listen.  The  sweet  music  flowed  over  my  sad 
heart  in  a  healing  tide.  Yes,  it  was  not  mean- 
ingless, after  all,  this  strange  life,  with  the 
good  years  shining  in  their  rainbow  halo,  even 


The  Burden  Falls  253 

though  the  path  led  into  darkness  and  form- 
less shadow.  I  seemed  to  look  back  on  it  all,  as 
the  traveller  on  the  hill  looks  out  from  the 
skirts  of  cloud  upon  the  sunny  valley  beneath 
him.  It  all  worked  together,  said  the  delicate 
rising  strain,  outlining  itself  above  the  soft 
thunder  of  the  pedals,  into  something  high  and 
grave  and  beautiful ;  it  all  ended  in  the  peace  of 
God.  I  sate  there,  with  wife  and  child,  a  pilgrim 
faring  onwards,  tasting  of  love  and  life  and  sor- 
row, weary  of  the  way,  but  still — yes,  I  could 
say  that — still  hopeful.  In  that  moment  even 
my  bitter  loss  had  something  beautiful  about  it. 
It  was  there ^  the  bright  episode  of  my  dear  Alec's 
life,  the  memory  of  the  beloved  years  together. 
Maggie,  seeing  something  in  my  face  that  she 
was  glad  to  see,  put  her  hand  in  mine,  and  the 
tears  rose  to  my  eyes,  while  I  smiled  at  Maud  ; 
the  burden  fell  off  my  shoulder  for  a  moment,  and 
something  seemed  as  it  were  to  touch  me  and 
point  onwards.  The  music  with  a  dying  fall 
came  to  a  soft  close ;  the  rich  light  fell  on  desk 
and  canopy ;  the  old  tombs  glimmered  in  the 
dusty  air.  We  went  out  in  silence ;  and  then 
there  came  back  to  me,  in  the  old  dark  court,  with 
its  ivied  comers,  its  trim  grass  plots,  the  sense  that 


254  The  Altar  Fire 

I  was  still  a  part  of  it  all,  that  the  old  life  was  not 
dead,  but  stored  up  like  a  garnered  treasure  in 
the  rich  and  guarded  past.  Not  by  detachment 
or  aloofness  from  happiness  and  warmth  and  life 
are  our  victories  won.  That  had  been  the  dark 
temptation,  the  shadow  of  my  loss,  to  believe  that 
in  so  sad  and  strange  an  existence  the  only  hope 
was  to  stand  apart  from  it  all,  not  to  care  too 
much,  not  to  love  too  closely.  That  was  false, 
utterly  false  ;  a  bare  and  grim  philosophy,  a 
timid  sauntering.  Rather  it  was  better  to  clasp 
all  things  close,  to  love  passionately,  to  desire  in- 
finitely, to  yield  oneself  gladly  and  joyfully  to 
every  deep  and  true  emotion  ;  not  greedily  and 
luxuriously,  flinging  aside  the  crumpled  husk 
that  had  given  up  its  sweetness  ;  but  tenderly  and 
gently,  holding  out  one's  arms  to  everything  pure 
and  noble,  trusting  that  behind  all  there  did  in- 
deed beat  a  great  and  fatherly  heart,  that  loved 
one  better  than  one  dreamed. 

That  was  a  strange  experience,  that  sunlit 
afternoon,  a  mingling  of  deepest  pain  and  softest 
hope,  a  touch  of  fire  from  the  very  altar  of  faith, 
linking  the  beautiful  past  with  the  dark  present, 
and  showing  me  that  the  future  held  a  promise 
of   perfect    graciousness    and  radiant  strength. 


Hope  255 


Did  other  lives  hold  the  same  rich  secrets  ?  I  felt 
that  they  did  ;  for  that  day,  at  least,  all  mankind, 
young  and  old  alike,  seemed  indeed  my  brothers 
and  sisters.  In  the  young  men  that  went  lightly 
in  and  out,  finding  life  so  full  of  zest,  thinking 
each  other  so  interesting  and  wonderful ;  in  the 
tired  face  of  the  old  Professor,  limping  along 
the  street ;  in  the  prosperous,  comfortable  con- 
tentment of  robust  men,  full  of  little  affairs  and 
schemes — I  saw  in  all  of  them  the  same  hope, 
the  same  unity  of  purpose,  the  same  significance  ; 
and  we  three  in  the  midst,  united  by  love  and 
loss  alike,  we  were  at  the  centre,  as  it  were,  of  a 
great  drama  of  life  and  love,  in  which  even  death 
could  only  shift  the  scene  and  enrich  the  intensity 
of  the  secret  hope. 

September  5,  1889. 
The  rapt  and  exalted  mood  that  I  carried  away 
from  Cambridge  could  not  last  ;  I  did  not  hope 
that  it  could.  We  have  had  a  dark  and  sad  time, 
yet  with  gleams  of  sweetness  in  it,  because  we 
have  realised  how  closely  we  are  drawn  together, 
how  much  we  depend  on  each  other.  Maud's 
brave  spirit  has  seemed  for  a  time  broken  utterly  ; 
and  this  has  done  more  than  anything  to  bring  us 


256  The  Altar  Fire 

nearer,  because  I  have  felt  the  stronger,  realising 
how  much  she  leant  upon  me.  She  has  been 
filled  with  self-reproach,  I  know  not  for  what 
shadowy  causes.  She  blames  herself  for  a  thou- 
sand things,  for  not  having  been  more  to  Alec,  for 
having  followed  her  own  interests  and  activities, 
for  not  having  understood  him  better.  It  is  all 
unreal,  morbid,  overstrained,  of  course,  but  none 
the  less  terribly  there.  I  have  tried  to  persuade 
her  that  it  is  but  weariness  and  grief  trying  to 
attach  itself  to  definite  causes,  but  she  cannot  be 
comforted.  Meanwhile  we  walk,  stroll,  drive, 
read,  and  talk  together — mostly  of  him,  for  I  can 
do  that  now  ;  we  can  even  smile  together  over 
little  memories,  though  it  is  perilous  walking, 
and  a  step  brings  us  to  the  verge  of  tears.  But, 
thank  God,  there  is  not  a  single  painful  memory, 
not  a  thing  we  would  have  had  otherwise  in  the 
whole  of  that  little  beautiful  life  ;  and  I  wonder 
now  wretchedly,  whether  its  very  beauty  and 
brightness  ought  not  to  have  prepared  me  more  to 
lose  him  ;  it  was  too  good  to  be  true,  too  perfectly 
pure  and  brave.  Yet  I  never  even  dreamed  that 
he  would  leave  us  ;  I  should  have  treasured  the 
bright  days  better  if  I  had.  There  are  times  of 
sharpest  sorrow ;  days  when  I  wake  and  have 


Love  and  Grief  257 

forgotten  ;  when  I  think  of  him  as  with  us,  and 
then  the  horror  of  my  loss  comes  curdling  and 
weltering  back  upon  me ;  when  I  thrill  from 
head  to  foot  with  hopeless  agony,  rebelling,  de- 
siring, hating  the  death  that  parts  us. 

Maggie  seems  to  feel  it  differently.  A  child 
accepts  a  changed  condition  with  perhaps  a 
sharper  pang,  but  with  a  swift  accustoming  to 
what  irreparably  is.  She  weeps  at  the  thought 
of  him  sometimes,  but  without  the  bitter  re- 
sistance, the  futile  despair  which  makes  me 
agonise.  That  she  can  be  interested,  distracted, 
amused,  is  a  great  help  to  me ;  but  nothing  seems 
to  minister  to  my  dear  Maud,  except  the  impas- 
sioned revival,  for  it  is  so,  of  our  earliest  first 
love.  It  has  come  back  to  bless  us,  that  deep 
and  intimate  absorption  that  had  moved  into  a 
gentler  comradeship.  The  old  mysterious  yearn- 
ing to  mingle  life  and  dreams,  and  almost 
identities,  has  returned  in  fullest  force  ;  the  years 
have  rolled  away,  and  in  the  loss  of  her 
calm  strength  and  patience,  we  are  as  lovers 
again.  The  touch  of  her  hand,  the  glance  of  her 
eye,  thrill  through  me  as  of  old.  It  is  a  devout 
service,  an  eager  anticipation  of  her  lightest  wish 
that  possesses  me.     I  am  no  longer  tended ;  I 


2  5B  The  Altar  Fire 

tend  and  serve.  There  is  something  soft,  appeal- 
ing, wistful  about  her  that  seems  to  give  her 
back  an  almost  childlike  dependence,  till  my 
grief  almost  goes  from  me  in  joy  that  I  can  sus- 
tain and  aid  her. 

September  7,  1889. 
Another  trouble  has  fallen  upon  us.  I  have 
had  a  very  grievous  letter  from  my  cousin,  who 
succeeded  by  arrangement,  on  my  father's  death, 
to  the  business.  He  has  been  unfortunate  in  his 
affairs ;  he  has  thrown  money  away  in  speculation. 
The  greater  part  of  my  income  came  from  the 
business.  I  suppose  the  arrangement  was  a  bad 
one,  but  the  practice  was  so  sound  and  secure  in 
my  father's  life  that  it  never  occurred  to  me  to 
doubt  its  stability.  The  chief  part  of  my  income, 
some  nine  hundred  a  year,  came  to  me  from  this 
source.  Apart  from  that,  I  have  some  three  or 
four  hundred  from  invested  money  of  my  own, 
and  Maud  has  upwards  of  two  hundred  a  year.    I 

am  going  off  to-morrow  to   L to  meet  my 

cousin,  and  go  into  the  matter.  I  don't  at  present 
understand  how  things  are.  His  letter  is  full  of 
protestations  and  self- recrimination.  We  can  live, 
I  suppose,  if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  but  in 


Business  Troubles  259 

a  very  different  way.  Perhaps  we  may  even 
have  to  sell  our  pleasant  house.  The  strange 
thing  is  that  I  don't  feel  this  all  more  acutely, 
but  I  seem  to  have  lost  the  power  of  suf- 
fering for  any  other  reason  than  because  Alec 
is  dead. 

September  12,   1889. 

I  have  come  back  to-night  from  some  weary 
nightmare  days  with  my  poor  cousin.  The  thing 
is  as  bad  as  it  can  be.  The  business  will  be  ac- 
quired by  Messrs.  F ,  the  next  most  leading 

solicitors.  With  the  price  they  will  give,  and 
with  the  sacrifice  of  my  cousin's  savings,  and 
the  assets  of  the  firm,  the  money  can  just  be 
paid.  We  shall  have  some  six  hundred  a  year  to 
live  upon  ;  my  cousin  is  to  enter  the  office  of  the 

F firm  as  an  ordinary  clerk.     The  origin  of 

the  disaster  is  a  melancholy  one  ;  it  was  not  that 
he  himself  might  profit,  but  to  increase  the  in- 
come of  some  clients  who  had  lost  money  and  de- 
sired a  higher  rate  of  interest  for  funds  left  in  the 
hands  of  the  firm.  If  my  cousin  had  resisted  the 
demand,  there  would  have  been  some  unpleasant- 
ness, because  the  money  lost  had  been  invested 
on  his  advice  ;  he  could  not  face  this,  and  pro- 


26o  The  Altar  Fire 

ceeded  to  speculate  with  other  money,  of  which 
he  was  trustee,  to  fill  the  gap.  Good- nature,  im- 
prudence, credulousness,  a  faulty  grasp  of  the 
conditions,  and  not  any  deliberate  dishonesty, 
have  been  the  cause  of  his  ruin.  It  is  a  fearful 
blow  to  him,  but  he  is  fortunate,  perhaps,  in  be- 
ing unmarried  ;  I  have  urged  him  to  try  and  get 
employment  elsewhere,  but  he  insists  upon  facing 
the  situation  in  the  place  where  he  is  known, 
with  a  fantastic  idea,  which  is  at  the  same  time 
noble  and  chivalrous,  of  doing  penance.  Of 
course  he  has  no  prospects  whatever  ;  but  I  am 
sure  of  this,  that  he  grieves  over  my  lost  in- 
heritance far  more  than  he  grieves  over  his  own 
ruin.     His  great  misery  is  that  some  years  ago 

he    refused    an    offer    from    Messrs.    F to 

amalgamate  the  two  firms. 

I  feared  at  first  that  I  might  have  to  sacrifice 
the  rest  of  my  money  as  well — money  slowly 
accumulated  oiit  of  my  own  labours.  And  the 
relief  of  finding  that  this  will  not  be  necessary  is 
immense.  We  must  sell  our  house  at  once,  and 
find  a  smaller  one.  At  present  I  am  not  afraid 
of  the  changed  circumstances  ;  indeed,  if  I  could 
only  recover  my  power  of  writing,  we  need  not 
leave  our  home.    The  temptation  is  to  get  a  book 


Memories  261 

written  somehow,  because  I  could  make  money 
by  any  stuff  just  now.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
will  almost  be  to  me  a  relief  to  part  from  the 
home  so  haunted  with  the  memory  of  Alec — 
though  that  will  be  a  dreadful  pain  to  Maud  and 
Maggie.  As  far  as  living  more  simply  goes,  that 
does  not  trouble  me  in  the  least.  I  have  always 
been  slightly  uncomfortable  about  the  ease  and 
luxury  in  which  we  lived.  I  only  wish  we  had 
lived  more  simply  all  along,  so  that  I  could  have 
put  by  a  little  more.  I  have  told  Maud  exactly 
how  matters  stand,  and  she  acquiesces,  though  I 
can  see  that,  just  at  this  time,  the  thought  of 
handing  over  to  strangers  the  house  where  we 
have  lived  all  our  married  life,  the  rooms  where 
Alec  and  the  baby  died,  is  a  deep  grief  to  her. 
To  me  that  is  almost  a  relief  I  have  dreaded 
going  back  there.  To-night  I  told  Maggie,  and  she 
broke  out  into  long  weeping.  But  even  so  there 
is  something  about  the  idea  of  being  poor,  strange 
to  say,  which  touches  a  sense  of  romance  in  the 
child.  She  does  not  realise  the  poky  restrictions 
of  the  new  life. 

And  still  stranger  to  me  is  the  way  in  which 
this  solid,  tangible  trouble  seems  to  have  restored 
my  energy  and  calm.      I   found  myself  clear- 


262  The  Altar  Fire 

headed,  able  to  grasp  the  business  questions 
which  arose,  gifted  with  a  hard  lucidity  of  mind 
that  I  did  not  know  I  possessed.  It  is  a  relief  to 
get  one's  teeth  into  something,  to  have  hard, 
definite  occupation  to  distract  one ;  indeed,  it 
hardly  seems  to  me  in  the  light  of  a  misfortune 
at  present,  so  much  as  a  blessed  tangible  problem 
to  be  grappled  with  and  solved.  What  I  should 
have  felt  if  all  had  been  lost,  and  if  I  had  had  to 
resign  my  liberty,  and  take  up  some  practical 
occupation,  I  hardly  know.  I  do  not  think  I 
should  even  have  dreaded  that  in  my  present 
frame  of  mind. 

September  15,  1889. 
I  have  been  thinking  all  day  long  of  my  last 
walk  with  Alec,  the  day  before  he  was  taken  ill. 
Maud  had  gone  out  with  Maggie  ;  and  the  little 
sturdy  figure  came  to  my  room  to  ask  if  I  was 
going  out.  I  was  finishing  a  book  that  I  was 
reading  for  the  evening's  work  ;  I  had  been  out 
in  the  morning,  and  I  had  not  intended  to  go  out 
again,  as  it  was  cold  and  drizzling.  I  very  nearly 
said  that  I  could  not  go,  and  I  had  a  shadow  of 
vexation  at  being  interrupted.  But  I  looked  up 
at  him,  as  he  stood  by  the  door,  and  there  was  a 


Last  Walk  with  Alec        263 

tiny  shadow  of  loneliness  upon  his  face ;  and  I 
thank  God  now  that  I  put  my  book  down  at  once, 
and  consented  cheerfully.  He  brightened  up  at 
this ;  he  fetched  my  cap  and  stick,  and  we  w^ent 
off  together.  I  am  glad  to  think  that  I  had  him 
to  myself  that  day.  He  was  in  a  more  confiden- 
tial mood  than  usual.  Perhaps — who  knows  ? — ■ 
there  was  some  shadow  of  death  upon  him,  some 
instinct  to  clasp  hands  closer  before  the  end.  He 
asked  me  to  tell  him  some  stories  of  my  school- 
days, and  what  I  used  to  do  as  a  boy — ^but  he 
was  full  of  alertness  and  life,  breaking  into  my 
narrative  to  point  out  a  nest  that  we  had  seen  in 
the  spring,  and  that  now  hung,  wind-dried  and 
ruinous,  among  the  boughs.  Coming  back,  he 
flagged  a  little,  and  did  what  he  seldom  did,  put 
his  arm  in  my  own ;  how  tenderly  the  touch  of 
the  little  hand,  the  restless  fingers  on  my  arm 
thrilled  me — the  hand  that  lies  cold  and  folded 
and  shrivelled  in  the  dark  ground  !  He  was 
proud  that  evening  of  having  had  me  all  to  him- 
self, and  said  to  Maggie  that  we  had  talked 
secrets,  **  such  as  men  talk  when  there  are  no 
women  to  ask  questions."  But  thinking  that  this 
had  wounded  Maggie  a  little,  he  went  and  put 
his  arm  round  her,  and  I  heard  him  say  some- 


264  The  Altar  Fire 

thing  about  its  being  all  nonsense,  and  that  we 
had  wished  for  her  all  the  time.     .     .     , 

Ah,  how  can  I  endure  it,  the  silence,  the 
absence,  the  lost  smile,  the  child  of  my  own 
whom  I  loved  from  head  to  foot,  body,  soul  and 
spirit  all  alike !  I  keep  coming  across  signs  of 
his  presence  everywhere,  his  books,  his  garden 
tools  in  the  summer-house,  the  little  presents  he 
gave  me,  on  my  study  chimney-piece,  his  cap  and 
coat  hanging  in  the  cupboard — it  is  these  little 
trifling  things,  signs  of  life  and  joyful  days,  that 
sting  the  heart  and  pierce  the  brain  with  sorrow. 
If  I  could  but  have  one  sight  of  him,  one  word 
with  him,  one  smile,  to  show  that  he  is,  that  he 
remembers,  that  he  waits  for  us,  I  could  endure 
it  ;  but  I  look  into  the  dark  and  no  answer  comes  ; 
I  send  my  wild  entreaties  pulsating  through  the 
worlds  of  space,  crying,  "Are  you  there,  my 
child  ?  "  That  his  life  is  there,  hidden  with  God, 
I  do  not  doubt ;  but  is  it  he  himself,  or  has  he 
fallen  back,  like  the  drop  of  water  in  the  fountain, 
into  the  great  tide  of  life  ?  That  is  no  comfort  to 
me  ;  it  is  he  that  I  want,  that  union  of  body  and 
mind,  of  life  and  love,  that  was  called  my  child 
and  is  mine  no  more. 


Without  Consolation         265 

September  20,  1889. 
Such  a  loss  as  mine  passes  over  the  soul  like  a 
plough  cleaving  a  pasture  line  by  line.  The  true 
stuff  of  the  spirit  is  revealed  and  laid  out  in  all  its 
bareness.  That  customary  outline,  that  surface 
growth  of  herb  and  blade,  is  all  pared  away.  I 
have  been  accustomed  to  think  myself  a  religious 
man — I  have  never  been  without  the  sense  of  God 
over  and  about  me.  But  when  an  experience  like 
this  comes,  it  shows  me  what  my  religion  is  worth. 
I  do  not  turn  to  God  in  love  and  hope  ;  I  do  not 
know  Him,  I  do  not  understand  Him.  I  feel 
that  He  must  have  forgotten  me,  or  that  He  is 
indifferent  to  me,  or  that  He  is  incapable  of  love, 
and  works  blindly  and  sternly.  My  reason  in 
vain  says  that  the  great  and  beautiful  gift  itself 
of  the  child's  life  and  the  child's  love  came  from 
Him.  I  do  not  question  His  power  or  His  right 
to  take  my  child  from  me.  But  I  endure  only 
because  I  must,  not  willingly  or  loyally  or  lov- 
ingly. It  is  not  that  I  feel  the  injustice  of  His 
taking  the  boy  away  ;  it  is  a  far  deeper  sense  of 
injustice  than  that.  The  injustice  lies  in  the  fact 
that  He  made  the  child  so  utterly  dear  and  de- 
sired ;  that  He  set  him  so  firmly  in  my  heart ; 
this  on  the  one  hand  ;  and  on  the  other,  that  He 


266  The  Altar  Fire 

does  not,  if  He  must  rend  the  little  life  away  and 
leave  the  bleeding  gap,  send  at  the  same  time 
some  love,  some  strength,  some  patience  to  make 
the  pain  bearable.  I  cannot  believe  that  the  love 
I  bore  my  boy  was  anything  but  a  sweet  and 
holy  influence.  It  gave  me  the  one  thing  of 
which  I  am  in  hourly  need — something  outside  of 
myself  and  my  own  interests,  to  love  better  than 
I  loved  even  myself.  It  seems  indeed  a  pure  and 
simple  loss,  unless  the  lesson  God  would  have  us 
learn  is  the  stoical  lesson  of  detachment,  indiffer- 
ence, cold  self-sulBQciency.  It  is  like  taking  the 
crutches  away  from  a  lame  man,  knocking  the 
props  away  from  a  tottering  building.  An  opti- 
mistic moralist  would  say  that  I  loved  Alec  too 
selfishly,  and  even  that  the  love  of  the  child 
turned  away  my  heart  from  the  jealous  Heart  of 
God,  who  demands  a  perfect  surrender,  a  perfect 
love.  But  how  can  one  love  that  which  one  does 
not  know  or  understand,  a  Power  that  walks  in 
darkness,  and  that  gives  us  on  the  one  hand 
sweet,  beautiful,  and  desirable  things,  and  on  the 
other  strikes  them  from  us  when  we  need  them 
most?  It  is  not  as  if  I  did  not  desire  to  trust  and 
love  God  utterly.  I  should  think  even  this  sor- 
row a  light  price  to  pay,  if  it  gave  me  a  pure  and 


The  Darkened  Heart  267 

deep  trust  in  the  mercy  and  goodness  of  God. 
But  instead  of  that  it  fills  me  with  dismay,  blank 
suspicion,  fretful  resistance.  I  do  not  feel  that 
there  is  anything  which  God  could  send  me  or 
reveal  to  me,  which  would  enable  me  to  acquit 
Him  of  hardness  or  injustice.  I  will  not,  though 
He  slay  me,  say  that  I  trust  Him  and  love  Him 
when  I  do  not.  He  may  crush  me  with  repeated 
blows  of  His  hand,  but  He  has  given  me  the 
divine  power  of  judging,  of  testing,  of  balancing  ; 
and  I  must  use  it  even  in  His  despite.  He  does 
not  require,  I  think,  a  dull  and  broken  submis- 
siveness,  the  submissiveness  of  the  creature  that 
is  ready  to  admit  anything,  if  only  he  can  be 
spared  another  blow.  What  He  requires,  so  my 
spirit  tells  me,  is  an  eager  co-operation,  a  brave 
approval,  a  generous  belief  in  His  goodness  and 
His  justice  ;  and  this  I  cannot  give,  and  it  is  He 
that  has  made  me  unable  to  give  it.  The  wound 
may  heal,  the  dull  pain  may  die  away,  I  may 
forget,  the  child  may  become  a  golden  memory — 
but  I  cannot  again  believe  that  this  is  the  sur- 
render God  desires.  What  I  think  He  must 
desire,  is  that  I  should  love  the  child,  miss  him 
as  bitterly  as  ever,  feel  my  day  darkened  by  his 
loss,  and  yet  turn  to  Him  gratefully  and  bravely 


268  The  Altar  Fire 

in  perfect  love  and  trust.  It  may  be  that  I  may  be 
drawn  closer  to  those  whom  I  love,  but  the  loss 
must  still  remain  irreparable,  because  I  might 
have  learned  to  love  my  dear  ones  better  through 
Alec's  presence,  and  not  through  his  absence.  It 
is  His  will,  I  do  not  doubt  it ;  but  I  cannot  see 
the  goodness  or  the  justice  of  the  act,  and  I  will 
not  pretend  to  myself  that  I  acquiesce. 

September  "2^^  1889. 

Yesterday  was  a  warm,  delicious,  soft  day,  full 
of  a  gentle  languor,  the  air  balmy  and  sweet,  the 
sunshine  like  the  purest  gold  ;  we  sate  out  all  the 
morning  under  the  cliff,  in  the  warm  dry  sand. 
To  the  right  and  left  of  us  lay  the  blue  bay,  the 
waves  breaking  with  short,  crisp  sparkles  on  the 
shore.  We  saw  headland  after  headland  sinking 
into  the  haze  ;  a  few  fishing-boats  moved  slowly 
about,  and  far  down  on  the  horizon  we  watched 
the  smoke  of  a  great  ocean-steamer.  We  talked, 
Maud  and  I,  for  the  first  time,  I  think,  without 
reserve,  without  bitterness,  almost  without  grief, 
of  Alec.  What  sustains  her  is  the  certainty  that 
he  is  as  he  was,  somewhere,  far  off,  as  brave  and 
loving  as  ever,  waiting  for  us,  but  waiting  with  a 


A  Mother's  Love  269 

perfect  understanding  and  knowledge  of  why  we 
are  separated.  She  dreams  of  him  thus,  looking 
down  upon  her,  and  seeming,  in  her  dream,  to 
wonder  what  there  can  be  to  grieve  about.  I 
suppose  that  a  mother  has  a  sense  of  oneness  with 
a  child  that  a  father  cannot  have.  It  is  a  deep 
and  marvellous  faith,  an  intuition  that  transcends 
all  reason,  a  radiant  certainty.  I  cannot  attain  to 
it.  But  in  the  warmth  and  light  of  her  belief,  I 
grew  to  feel  that  at  least  there  was  vSome  explana- 
tion of  it  all.  Not  by  chance  is  the  dear  gift  sent 
us,  not  by  chance  do  we  learn  to  love  it,  not  by 
chance  is  it  rent  from  us.  Ikying  thus,  talking 
softly,  in  so  gracious  a  world,  a  world  that  satis- 
fied every  craving  of  the  .senses,  I  came  to  realise 
that  the  Father  must  wish  us  well,  and  that  if  the 
shadow  fell  upon  our  path,  it  was  not  to  make  us 
cold  and  bitter-hearted.  Infinite  I^ove !  it  came 
near  to  me  in  that  hour,  and  clasped  me  to  a  sor- 
rowful, tender,  beating  Heart.  I  read  Maud,  at 
her  request,  Evelyn  Hope^  and  the  strong  and 
patient  love,  that  dwells  so  serenely  and  softly 
upon  the  incidents  of  death,  yet  without  the  least 
touch  of  morbidity  and  gloom,  treating  death 
itself  as  a  quiet  slumber  of  the  soul,  taught  me 
for  a  moment  how  to  be  brave. 


270  The  Altar  Fire 

**You  will  wake  and  remember,  and  under- 
stand,"— my  voice  broke  and  tears  came,  un- 
bidden tears  which  I  did  not  even  desire  to 
conceal — and  in  that  moment  the  spirit  of  my 
wife  came  near  to  me,  and  soul  looked  into  the 
eyes  of  soul,  with  a  perfect  and  bewildering  joy, 
the  very  joy  of  God. 

October  10,  1889. 
We  have  had  the  kindest,  dearest  letters  from 
our  neighbours  about  our  last  misfortune.  But 
no  one  seems  to  anticipate  that  we  shall  be 
obliged  to  leave  the  place.  They  naturally  sup- 
pose that  I  shall  be  able  to  make  as  large  an  in- 
come as  I  want  by  writing.  And  so  I  suppose  I 
could.  I  talked  the  whole  matter  over  with 
Maud,  and  said  I  would  abide  by  her  decision.  I 
confessed  that  I  had  an  extreme  repugnance  to  the 
thought  of  turning  out  books  for  money,  books 
which  I  knew  to  be  inferior ;  but  I  also  said  that 
if  she  could  not  bear  to  leave  the  place,  I  had 
little  doubt  that  I  could,  for  the  present  at  all 
events,  make  enough  money  to  render  it  possible 
for  us  to  continue  to  live  there,  I  said  frankly 
that  it  would  be  a  relief  to  me  to  leave  a  house  so 
sadly  haimted  by  memory,  and  that  I  should  my- 


Uprooting  271 

self  prefer  to  live  elsewhere,  framing  our  house- 
hold on  very  simple  lines — and  to  let  the  power  of 
writing  come  back  if  it  would,  not  to  try  and  force 
it.  It  would  be  a  dreadful  prospect  to  me  to  live 
thus,  overshadowed  by  recollection,  working  dis- 
mally for  money  ;  but  I  suppose  it  would  be 
possible,  even  bracing.  Maud  did  not  hesitate  ; 
she  spoke  quite  frankly  ;  on  the  one  hand  the 
very  associations,  which  I  dread  most,  were  evi- 
dently to  her  a  source  of  sad  delight ;  and  the 
thought  of  strangers  living  in  rooms  so  hallowed 
by  grief  was  like  a  profanation.  Then  there  was 
the  fact  of  all  her  relations  with  our  friends  and 
neighbours  ;  but  she  said  quite  simply  that  my 
feeling  outweighed  it  all,  and  that  she  would  far 
rather  begin  life  afresh  somewhere  else,  than  put 
me  in  the  position  I  described.  We  determined 
to  try  and  find  a  small  house  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  her  own  old  home  in  Gloucestershire  ; 
and  this  thought,  I  am  sure,  gave  her  real  happi- 
ness. We  determined  at  once  what  we  would 
do  ;  we  would  let  our  house  for  a  term  of  years, 
take  what  furniture  we  needed,  and  dispose  of  the 
rest ;  we  arranged  to  go  off  to  Gloucestershire,  as 
soon  as  possible,  to  look  for  a  house.  We  both 
realise  that  we  must  learn  to  retrench  at  once. 


2  72  The  Altar  Fire 

We  shall  have  less  than  half  our  former  income, 
counting  in  what  we  hope  to  get  from  the  old 
house.  I  am  not  at  all  afraid  of  that.  I  always 
vaguely  disliked  living  as  comfortably  as  we  did 
— but  it  will  not  be  agreeable  to  have  to  calculate 
all  our  expenses — that  may  perhaps  mend  itself, 
I  can  but  begin  my  writing  again. 

All  this  helps  me — I  am  ashamed  to  say  how 
much — though  sometimes  the  thought  of  all  the 
necessary  arrangements  weighs  on  me  like  a 
leaden  weight,  on  days  when  I  fall  back  into  a 
sad,  idle,  hopeless  repining.  Sometimes  it  seems 
as  if  the  old  happy  life  was  all  broken  up  and 
gone  for  ever  ;  and,  so  strange  a  thing  is  memory 
and  imagination,  that  even  the  months  over- 
shadowed by  the  loss  of  my  faculty  of  work  seem 
to  me  now  impossibly  fragrant  and  beautiful,  my 
sufferings  unreal  and  unsubstantial.  Real  trou- 
ble, real  grief,  have  at  least  the  bracing  force  of 
actuality,  and  sweep  aside  with  a  strong  hand  all 
artificial  self-made  miseries  and  glooms. 

December  15,  1889. 
I  have  kept  no  record  of  these  weeks.     They 
have  been  full  of  business,  sadness,  and  yet  of 
hope.     We  went  back  home  for  a  time  ;  we  made 


Farewells  273 

our  farewells,  and  it  moved  me  strangely  to  see 
that  our  departure  was  viewed  almost  with  con- 
sternation. It  is  Maud's  loss  that  will  be  felt. 
I  have  lived  very  selfishly  and  dully  myself,  but 
even  so  I  was  half- glad  to  find  that  even  I  should 
be  missed.  At  such  a  time  everything  is  forgot- 
ten and  forgiven,  and  such  grudging,  peaceful 
neighbourliness  as  even  I  have  shown  seems  ap- 
preciated and  valued.  It  was  a  heartrending 
business  reviving  our  sorrow,  and  it  plunged  me 
for  a  time  into  my  old  dry  bitterness  of  spirit. 
But  I  hardened  my  heart  as  best  I  could,  and  felt 
more  deeply  than  ever,  how  far  beyond  my 
powers  of  endurance  it  would  have  been  to  have 
taken  up  the  old  life,  and  Alec  not  there.  Again 
and  again  it  was  like  a  knife  plunged  into  my 
heart  with  an  almost  physical  pain.  Not  so  with 
Maud  and  Maggie — it  was  to  them  a  treasure  of 
precious  memories,  and  they  could  dare  to  indulge 
their  grief.  I  can't  write  of  it,  I  can't  think  of 
it.  Wherever  I  turned,  I  saw  him  in  a  hundred 
guises — as  a  tiny  child,  as  a  small,  sturdy  boy,  as 
the  son  we  lost. 

We  have  let  the  house  to  some  very  kind  and 
reasonable  people  who  have  made  things  very 
easy  to  us  ;  and  to  me  at  least  it  was  a  sort  of 


2  74  The  Altar  Fire 

heavy  joy  to  take  the  last  meal  in  the  old  home, 
to  drive  away,  to  see  the  landscape  fade  from 
sight.  I  shall  never  willingly  return.  It  would 
seem  to  me  like  a  wilful  rolling  among  the  thorns 
of  life,  a  gathering-in  of  spears  into  one's  breast. 
I  seemed  like  a  naked  creature  that  had  lost  its 
skin,  that  shrank  and  bled  at  every  touch. 

February  lo,  1890. 

I  have  been  house-hunting,  and  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  dislike  it.  The  sight  of  unknown  houses, 
high  garden  walls,  windows  looking  into  blind 
courts,  staircases  leading  to  lofts,  dark  cupboards, 
old  lumber,  has  a  very  stimulating  effect  on  my 
imagination.  Perhaps,  too,  I  sometimes  think, 
these  old  places  are  full  of  haunting  spiritual 
presences,  clinging,  half  tearfully,  half  joyfully  to 
the  familiar  scenes,  half  sad,  perhaps,  that  they 
did  not  make  a  finer  thing  of  the  little  confined 
life  ;  half  glad  to  be  free — as  a  man,  strong  and 
well,  might  look  with  a  sense  of  security  into  a 
room  where  he  had  borne  an  operation.  But  I 
have  never  believed  much  in  haunted  rooms. 
The  Father's  many  mansions  can  hardly  be 
worth  deserting  for  the  little,  dark  houses  of  our 
tiny  life. 


An  Old  House  275 

I  disliked  some  of  the  houses  intensely — so  ugly 
and  pretentious,  so  inconvenient  and  dull ;  but 
even  so  it  is  pleasant  in  fancy  to  plan  the  life 
one  would  live  there,  the  rooms  one  would  use. 
One  house  touched  me  inexpressibly.  It  was  a 
house  I  knew  from  the  outside  in  a  little  town 
where  I  used  to  go  and  spend  a  few  weeks  every 
year  with  an  old  aunt  of  mine.  The  name  of  the 
little  town— I  saw  it  in  an  agent's  list — had  a  sort 
of  enchantment  forme,  a  golden  haze  of  memory. 
I  was  allowed  a  freedom  there  I  was  allowed 
nowhere  else,  I  was  petted  and  made  much  of, 
and  I  used  to  spend  most  of  my  time  in  sauntering 
about,  just  looking,  watching,  scrutinising  things 
with  the  hard  and  uncritical  observation  of  child- 
hood. When  I  got  to  the  place,  I  was  surprised  to 
find  that  I  knew  well  the  look  of  the  house  I  went 
to  see,  though  I  had  not  even  entered  it.  Two 
neat,  contented,  slightly  absurd  old  maiden  ladies 
had  lived  there,  who  used  to  walk  out  together, 
dressed  exactly  alike  in  some  faded  fashion.  The 
laurels  and  yews  still  grew  thickly  in  the  shrub- 
bery, and  shaded  the  windows  of  the  ugly  little 
parlom-s.  An  old,  quiet,  respectable  maid  showed 
me  round ;  she  had  been  in  service  there  for 
twenty  years,   and  she  was   tearfully   lamenting 


276  The  Altar  Fire 

over  the  break-up  of  the  home.  The  old  ladies 
had  lived  there  for  sixty  years.  One  of  them  had 
died  ten  years  before,  the  other  had  lingered  on 
to  extreme  old  age.  The  house  was  like  a 
museum,  a  specimen  of  a  house  of  the  thirties,  in 
which  nothing  had  ever  been  touched  or  changed. 
The  strange  wall-papers  and  chintzes,  the  crewel- 
work  chairs,  the  mirrors,  the  light  maple  furni- 
ture, the  case  of  moth-eaten  humming-birds,  the 
dull  engravings  of  historical  pictures,  the  old 
books — the  drawing-room  table  was  covered  with 
annuals  and  keepsakes,  Moore's  poems,  Mrs. 
Barbauld's  works— all  had  a  pathetic  ugliness, 
redeemed  by  a  certain  consistency  of  quality. 
And  then  the  poky,  comfortable  arrangements, 
the  bath-chair  in  the  coach-house,  the  four-posted 
bedsteads,  the  hand-rail  on  the  stairs,  the  sand- 
bags for  the  doors,  all  spoke  of  a  timid,  invalid 
life,  a  dim  backwater  in  the  tide  of  things.  There 
had  been  children  there  at  some  time,  for  there 
were  broken  toys,  collections  of  dried  plants, 
curious  stones,  in  an  attic.  The  little  drama  of 
the  house  shaped  itself  for  me,  as  I  walked 
through  the  frousy,  faded  rooms,  with  a  touch- 
ing insistence.  This  bedroom  had  never  been 
used  since  Miss  Eleanor  died — and  I  could  fancy 


An  Old  House  277 

the  poor,  little,  timid,  precise  life  flitting  away 
among  the  well-known  surroundings.  This  had 
been  Miss  Jackson's  favourite  room — it  was  so 
quiet — she  had  died  there,  sitting  in  her  chair,  a 
few  weeks  before.  The  leisurely,  harmless  routine 
of  the  quiet  household  rose  before  me.  I  could 
imagine  Miss  Jackson  writing  her  letters,  reading 
her  book,  eating  her  small  meals,  making  the 
same  humble  and  grateful  remarks,  entertaining 
her  old  friends.  Year  after  year  it  had  gone  on, 
just  the  same,  the  clock  ticking  loud  in  the  hall, 
the  sun  creeping  round  the  old  rooms,  the  birds 
singing  in  the  garden,  the  faint  footsteps  in  the 
road.  It  had  begun,  that  gentle  routine,  long  be- 
fore I  had  been  born  into  the  world  ;  and  it  was 
strange  to  me  to  think  that,  as  I  passed  through 
the  most  stirring  experiences  of  my  life,  nothing 
ever  stirred  or  moved  or  altered  here.  Miss 
Jackson  had  felt  Miss  Eleanor's  death  very  much; 
she  had  hardly  ever  left  the  house  since,  and  they 
had  had  no  company.  Yes,  what  a  woefully  be- 
wildering thing  death  swooping  down  into  that 
quiet  household,  with  all  its  tranquil  security, 
must  have  been !  One  wondered  what  Miss 
Eleanor  had  felt,  when  she  had  to  die,  to  pass 
out  into  the  unknown  dark  out  of  a  world  so 


2  78  The  Altar  Fire 

tender,  so  familiar,  so  peaceful ;  and  what  had 
poor  Miss  Jackson  made  of  it,  when  she  was  left 
alone  ?  She  must  have  found  it  all  very  puzzling, 
very  dreary.  And  yet,  in  the  past,  perhaps  one 
or  both  of  them,  had  had  dreams  of  a  fuller  life, 
had  fancied  that  something  more  than  tenderness 
had  looked  out  of  the  eyes  of  man ;  well,  it  had 
come  to  nothing,  whatever  it  might  have  been  ; 
and  the  two  old  ladies  had  settled  down,  perhaps 
with  some  natural  repining,  to  their  unexciting, 
contented  life,  the  day  filled  with  little  duties 
and  pleasures,  the  night  with  innocent  sleep. 
It  had  not  been  a  selfish  life — they  had  been  good 
to  the  poor,  the  maid  told  me  ;  and  in  old  days 
they  had  often  had  their  nephews  and  nieces  to 
stay  with  them.  But  those  children  had  grown 
up  and  gone  out  into  the  world,  and  no  longer 
cared  to  return  to  the  dull  little  house 
with  its  precise  ways,  and  the  fidget}^  love  that 
had  once  embraced  them. 

The  whole  thing  seemed  a  mysterious  mixture 
of  purposelessness  and  contentment.  Rumours 
of  wars,  social  convulsions,  patriotic  hopes,  great 
ideas,  had  swept  on  their  course  outside,  and  had 
never  stirred  the  drowsy  current  of  life  behind 
the  garden  walls.    The  sisters  had  lived,  sweetly, 


An  Old  House  279 

perhaps,  and  softly,  like  trees  in  some  sequestered 
woodland,  hardly  recognising  their  own  gentle 
lapse  of  strength  and  activity. 

And  now  the  whole  thing  was  over  for  good. 
Curious  and  indifferent  people  came,  tramped 
about  the  house,  pronounced  it  old-fashioned  and 
inconvenient.  I  could  not  do  that  myself;  the 
place  was  brimful  of  pathetic  evidences  of  what 
had  been.  Soon,  no  doubt,  the  old  house  would 
wear  a  different  guise — it  would  be  renovated  and 
restored,  the  furniture  would  drift  away  to  second- 
hand shops,  the  litter  would  be  thrown  out  upon 
the  rubbish  heap.  New  lives,  new  relationships 
would  spring  up ;  children  would  be  born,  boys 
w^ould  play,  lovers  would  embrace,  sufferers  would 
lie  musing,  men  and  women  would  die  in  those 
refurbished  rooms.  Bverthing  would  drift  on- 
wards, and  the  lives  to  whom  each  corner,  each 
stair,  each  piece  of  furniture  had  meant  so  much, 
would  become  a  memory  first,  and  then  fade  into 
nothingness.  Where  and  what  were  the  two  old 
ladies  now  ?  Were  they  gone  out  utterly,  like  an 
extinguished  flame  ?  were  they  in  some  new  home 
of  tranquil  peace?  Were  they  adjusting  themselves 
with  a  sense  of  timid  impotence— those  slender, 
tired  spirits — to  new  and  bewildering  conditions  ? 


28o  The  Altar  Fire 

The  old,  dull  house  called  to  me  that  day  with 
a  hundred  faint  voices  and  tremulous  echoes.  I 
could  make  nothing  of  it ;  for  though  it  swept 
the  strings  of  my  heart  with  a  ghostly  music,  it 
seemed  to  have  no  certain  message  for  me,  but 
the  message  of  oblivion  and  silence. 

I  was  sorry,  as  I  went  away,  to  leave  the  poor 
maidservant  to  her  lonely  and  desolate  memories. 
She  had  to  leave  her  comfortable  kitchen  and  her 
easy  routine,  for  new  duties  and  new  faces,  and  I 
could  see  that  she  anticipated  the  change  with 
sad  dismay. 

It  seemed  to  me  in  that  hour  as  though  the 
cruelty  and  the  tenderness  of  the  world  were  very 
mysteriously  blended — there  was  no  lack  of  ten- 
derness in  the  old  house  with  its  innumerable 
small  associations,  its  sheltered  calm.  And  then 
suddenly  the  stroke  must  fall  upon  lives  whose 
very  security  and  gentleness  seemed  to  have  been 
so  ill  a  preparation  for  sterner  and  darker  things.  It 
would  have  been  more  loving,  one  thought,  either 
to  have  made  the  whole  fabric  more  austere,  more 
precarious  from  the  first ;  or  else  to  have  bestowed 
a  deep  courage  and  a  fertile  hope,  a  firmer  endur- 
ance, rather  than  to  have  confronted  lives  so  frail 
and  delicate  with  the  terrors  of  the  vast  unknown. 


Our  New  Home  281 

April  8,  1890. 

Our  new  house  is  charming,  beautiful,  home- 
like. It  is  an  old  stone  building,  formerly  a 
farm  ;  it  has  a  quaint  garden  and  orchard,  and 
the  wooded  hill  runs  up  steeply  behind,  with  a 
stream  in  front.  It  is  on  the  outskirts  of  a 
village,  and  we  are  within  three  miles  of  Maud's 
old  home,  so  that  she  knows  all  the  country 
round.  We  have  got  two  of  our  old  servants, 
and  a  solid  comfortable  gardener,  a  native  of  the 
place.  The  house  within  is  quaint  and  comfort- 
able. We  have  a  spare  bedroom  ;  I  have  no 
study  but  shall  use  the  little  panelled  dining- 
room.  We  have  had  much  to  do  in  settling  in, 
and  I  have  done  a  great  deal  of  hard  physical 
work  myself,  in  the  way  of  moving  furniture  and 
hanging  pictures,  inducing  much  wholesome 
fatigue.  Maggie,  who  broke  down  dreadfully  on 
leaving  the  old  home,  with  the  wonderful  spring 
that  children  have,  is  full  of  excitement  and  even 
delight  in  the  new  house.  I  rather  dread  the 
time  when  all  our  occupations  shall  be  over,  and 
when  we  shall  settle  down  to  the  routine  of  life. 
I  begin  to  wonder  how  I  shall  occupy  myself.  I 
mean  to  do  a  good  many  odd  jobs— we  have  no 
trap,  and  there  will  be  a  good  deal  of  fetching 


282  The  Altar  Fire 

and  carrying  to  be  done.  We  shall  resume  our 
lessons,  Maggie  and  I  ;  there  will  be  reading, 
gardening,  walking.  One  ought  to  be  able  to 
live  philosophically  enough.  What  would  I  not 
give  to  be  able  to  write  now  !  but  the  instinct 
seems  wholly  and  utterly  dead  and  gone.  I  can- 
not even  conceive  that  I  ever  used,  solemnly  and 
gravely,  to  write  about  imaginary  people,  their 
jests  and  epigrams,  their  sorrows  and  cares.  Life 
and  art !  I  used  to  suppose  that  it  was  all  a  softly 
moulded,  rhythmic,  sonorous  affair,  strophe  and 
antistrophe  ;  but  the  griefs  and  sorrows  of  art  are 
so  much  nearer  each  other,  like  major  and  minor 
keys,  than  the  griefs  and  sorrows  of  life.  In  art, 
the  musician  smiles  and  sighs  alternately,  but  his 
sighing  is  a  balanced,  an  ordered  mood  ;  the 
inner  heart  is  content,  as  the  pool  is  content, 
whether  it  mirrors  the  sunlight  or  the  lonely 
star  ;  but  in  life,  joy  is  to  grief  what  music  is  to 
aching  silence,  dumbness,  inarticulate  pain — 
though  perhaps  in  that  silence  one  hears  a 
deeper,  stranger  sound,  the  buzz  of  the  whirring 
atom,  the  soft  thunder  of  worlds  plunging 
through  the  void,  joyless,  gigantic,  oblivious 
forces. 

Is  it  good  thus  to  have  the  veils  of  life  rent 


The  New  Life  283 

asunder  ?  If  life,  the  world's  life,  activity,  work, 
be  the  end  of  existence,  then  it  is  not  good.  It 
breaks  the  spring  of  energy,  so  that  one  goes 
heavily  and  sorely.  But  what  if  that  be  not  the 
end  ?    What  then  ? 

May  16,  1890. 
At  present  the  new  countryside  is  a  great 
resource.  I  walk  far  among  the  wolds  ;  I  find 
exquisite  villages,  where  every  stone-built  house 
seems  to  have  style  and  quality  ;  I  come  down 
upon  green  water-meadows,  with  clear  streams 
flowing  by  banks  set  with  thorn-bushes  and 
alders.  The  churches,  the  manor-houses,  of  grey 
rubble  smeared  with  plaster,  with  stone  roof-tiles, 
are  a  feast  for  eye  and  heart.  I<ong  days  in  the 
open  air  bring  me  a  dull  equable  health  of  body,  a 
pleasant  weariness,  a  good-humoured  indifference. 
My  mind  becomes  grass-grown,  full  of  weeds, 
ruinous  ;  but  I  welcome  it  as  at  least  a  respite 
from  suffering.  It  is  strange  to  think  of  myself 
at  what  ought,  I  suppose,  to  be  the  busiest  and 
fullest  time  of  my  life,  living  here  like  a  tree  in 
lonely  fields.  What  would  be  the  normal  life  ? 
A  little  house  in  a  London  street,  I  suppose,  with 
a  lot  of  white  paint  and  bookshelves.    Luncheons, 


284  The  Altar  Fire 

dinners,  plays,  music,  clubs,  week-end  visits  to 
lively  houses,  a  rush  abroad,  a  few  country  visits 
in  the  winter.  Very  harmless  and  pleasant  if  one 
enjoyed  it,  but  to  me  inconceivable  and  insupport- 
able. Perhaps  I  should  be  happier  and  brisker, 
perhaps  the  time  would  go  quicker.  Ought  one 
to  make  up  one's  mind  that  this  would  be  the 
normal  life,  and  that  therefore  one  had  better 
learn  to  accommodate  oneself  to  it  ?  Does  one 
pay  penalties  for  not  submitting  oneself  to  the 
ordinary  laws  of  human  intercourse  ?  Doubtless 
one  does.  But  then,  made  as  I  am,  I  should 
have  to  pay  penalties  which  would  seem  to  be 
even  heavier  for  the  submission.  It  is  there  that 
the  puzzle  lies  ;  that  a  man  should  be  created 
with  the  strong  instinct  that  I  feel  for  liberty  and 
independence  and  solitude  and  the  quiet  of  the 
country,  and  then  that  he  should  discover  that 
the  life  he  so  desires  should  be  the  one  that 
develops  all  the  worst  side  of  him — morbidity, 
fastidiousness,  gloom,  discontent.  This  is  the 
shadow  of  civilisation  ;  that  it  makes  people  in- 
tellectual, alert,  craving  for  stimulus,  and  yet 
sucks  their  nerves  dry  of  the  strength  that  makes 
such  things  enjoyable. 

And  still,  as  I  go  in  and  out,  the  death  of  Alec 


An  Inexplicable  Thing       285 

seems  the  one  absolutely  unintelligible  and  inex- 
plicable thing,  a  gloom  penetrated  by  no  star.  It 
was  the  one  thing  that  might  have  made  me  un- 
selfish, tender-hearted,  the  anxious  care  of  some 
other  than  myself.  ' '  Perhaps, ' '  says  an  old  friend 
writing  to  me  with  a  clumsy  attempt  at  comfort, 
"perhaps  he  was  taken  mercifully  away  from 
some  evil  to  come.'*  A  good  many  people  say 
that,  and  feel  it  quite  honestly.  But  what  an  in- 
supportable idea  of  the  ways  of  Providence,  that 
God  had  planned  a  prospect  for  the  child  so 
dreadful  that  even  his  swift  removal  should  be 
tolerable  by  comparison  !  What  a  helpless,'  hope- 
less confession  of  failure  !  No  ;  either  the  whole 
short  life,  closed  by  the  premature  death,  must 
have  been  designed,  planned,  executed  deliber- 
ately ;  or  else  God  is  at  the  mercy  of  blank  cross- 
currents, opposing  forces,  tendencies  even  stronger 
than  Himself;  and  then  the  very  idea  of  God 
crumbles  away,  and  God  becomes  the  blank  and 
inscrutable  force  working  behind  a  gentle,  good- 
humoured  will,  which  would  be  kind  and  gracious 
if  it  could,  but  is  trammelled  and  bound  by  some- 
thing stronger  ;  that  was  the  Greek  view,  of 
course — God  above  man,  and  Fate  above  God. 
The  worst  of  it  is  that  it  has  a  horrible  vraisem- 


286  The  Altar  Fire 

blance,  and  seems  to  lie  even  nearer  to  the  facts 
of  life  than  our  own  tender-hearted  and  senti- 
mental theories  and  schemes  of  religion. 

But  whether  it  be  God  or  fate,  the  burden  has 
to  be  borne.  And  my  one  endeavour  must  be  to 
bear  it  myself,  consciously  and  courageously,  and 
to  shift  it  so  far  as  I  can  from  the  gentler  and 
tenderer  shoulders  of  those  whose  life  is  so 
strangely  linked  with  mine. 

May  25,  1890. 

One  sees  a  house,  like  the  house  we  now  live 
in,  from  a  road  as  one  passes,  from  the  windows 
of  a  train.  It  seems  to  be  set  at  the  end  of  the 
world,  with  the  earth's  sunset  distance  behind  it — 
it  seems  a  fortress  of  quiet,  a  place  of  infinite 
peace  ;  and  then  one  lives  in  it,  and  behold,  it 
is  a  centre  of  a  little  active  life,  with  all  sorts  of 
cross-currents  darting  to  and  fro,  over  it,  past  it. 

Or  again  one  thinks,  as  one  sees  such  a  house 
in  passing,  that  there  at  least  one  could  live  in 
meditation  and  cloistered  calm  ;  that  there  would 
be  neither  cares  nor  anxieties  ;  that  one  would  be 
content  to  sit,  just  looking  out  at  the  quiet  fields, 
pacing  to  and  fro,  receiving  impressions,  mus- 
ing, selecting,  apprehending — and  then  one  lives 


Routine  287 

there,  and  the  stream  of  life  is  as  turbid,  as  fretful 
as  ever.  The  strange  thing  is  that  such  delusions 
survive  any  amount  of  experience  ;  that  one  can- 
not read  into  other  lives  the  things  that  trouble 
one's  own. 

A  little  definite  scheme  opens  before  us  here ; 
old  friends  of  Maud's  find  us  out,  simple,  kindly, 
tiresome  people.  There  is  an  exchange  of  small 
civilities,  there  are  duties,  activities,  relationships. 
To  Maud  these  things  come  by  the  light  of  na- 
ture ;  to  her  the  simplest  interchange  of  definite 
thoughts  is  as  natural  as  to  breathe.  I  hear  her 
calm,  sweet,  full  voice  answering,  asking.  To 
me  these  things  are  utterly  wearisome  and  profit- 
less. I  want  only  to  speak  of  the  things  for 
which  I  care,  and  to  people  attuned  to  the  same 
key  of  thought ;  a  basis  of  sympathy  and  temper- 
amental differences — that  is  the  perfect  union  of 
qualities  for  a  friend.  But  these  stolid,  kindly 
parsons,  with  brisk,  active  wives,  ingenuous 
daughters,  heavy  sons — I  want  either  to  know 
them  better,  or  not  to  know  them  at  all.  I  want 
to  enter  the  house,  the  furnished  chambers  of 
people's  minds ;  and  I  am  willing  enough  to 
throw  my  own  open  to  a  cordial  guest ;  but  I  do 
not  want  to  stand  and  chatter  in  some  debatable 


288  The  Altar  Fire 

land  of  social  conventionality.  I  have  no  store 
of  simple  geniality.  The  other  night  we  went  to 
dine  quietly  with  a  parson  near  here,  a  worthy 
fellow,  happy  and  useful.  Afterwards,  in  the 
drawing-room,  I  sate  beside  my  host.  I  saw 
Maud  listening,  with  rapt  interest,  to  the  chron- 
icles of  all  the  village  families,  robustly  and 
unimaginatively  told  by  the  parson's  wife  ;  mean- 
while I,  tortured  by  intolerable  enjini,  pumped 
up  questions,  tried  a  hundred  subjects  with  my 
worthy  host.  He  told  me  long  and  prolix  stories, 
he  discoursed  on  rural  needs.  At  last  I  said  that 
we  must  be  going  ;  he  replied  with  genuine  dis- 
appointment that  the  night  was  still  young,  and 
that  it  was  a  pity  to  break  up  our  pleasant  con- 
fabulation. I  saw  with  a  shock  of  wonder  that 
he  had  evidently  been  enjoying  himself  hugely  ; 
that  it  was  a  pleasure  to  him,  for  some  unaccount- 
able reason,  not  to  hear  a  new  person  talk,  but  to 
say  the  same  things  that  he  had  said  for  years,  to 
a  new  person.  It  is  not  ideas  that  most  people 
want ;  they  are  satisfied  with  mere  gregarious- 
ness,  the  sight  and  sound  of  other  figures.  They 
like  to  produce  the  same  stock  of  ideas,  the  same 
conclusions.  "As  I  always  say,"  was  a  phrase 
that  was   for  ever  on  my  entertainer's  lips.     I 


Monotony  289 

suppose  that  probably  my  own  range  iS  just  as 
limited,  but  I  have  an  Athenian  hankering  after 
novelty  of  thought,  the  new  mintage  of  the  mind. 
I  loathe  the  old  obliterated  coinage,  with  the 
stamp  all  rounded  and  faint.  Dulness,  sameness, 
triteness,  are  they  essential  parts  of  life  ?  I  sup- 
pose it  is  really  that  my  nervous  energy  is  low, 
and  requires  stimulus:  if  it  were  strong  and 
full,  the  current  would  flow  into  the  trivial  things. 
I  derive  a  certain  pleasure  from  the  sight  of 
other  people's  rooms,  the  familiar,  uncomfortable, 
shabby  furniture,  the  drift  of  pictures,  the  debris 
of  ornament — all  that  stands  for  difference  and 
individuality.  But  one  can't  get  inside  most 
people's  minds ;  they  only  admit  one  to  the 
public  rooms.  A  crushing  fatigue  and  depression 
settles  down  upon  me  in  such  hours,  and  then 
the  old  blank  sense  of  grief  and  loss  comes  flow- 
ing back — it  is  old  already,  because  it  seems  to 
have  stained  all  the  backward  p^ges  of  life  ;  then 
follows  the  weary,  restless  night  ;  and  the  break- 
ing of  the  grey,  pitiless  dawn. 

June  3,  1890. 
I  do  not  want,  even  in  my  thoughts,  to  put  the 

contemplative  life  above  the  practical  life.  Highest 
19 


290  The  Altar  Fire 

of  all  I  would  put  a  combination  of  the  two — a 
man  of  high  and  clear  ideals,  in  a  position  where 
he  was  able  to  give  them  shape — a  great  construct- 
ive statesman,  a  great  educator,  a  great  man  of 
business,  who  was  also  keenly  alive  to  social  pro- 
blems, a  great  philanthropist.  Next  to  these  I 
would  put  great  thinkers,  moralists,  poets — all 
who  inspire.  Then  I  would  put  the  absolutely- 
effective  instruments  of  great  designs — legislators, 
lawyers,  teachers,  priests,  doctors,  writers — men 
without  originality,  but  with  a  firm  conception  of 
civic  and  human  duty.  And  then  I  would  put 
all  those  who,  in  a  small  sphere,  exercise  a  direct, 
simple  influence — and  then  come  the  large  mass 
of  mankind  ;  people  who  work  faithfully,  from 
instinct  and  necessity,  but  without  any  particular 
design  or  desire,  except  to  live  honestly,  hon- 
ourably, and  respectably,  with  no  urgent  sense 
of  the  duty  of  serving  others,  taking  life  as  it 
comes,  practical  individualists,  in  fact.  No  higher 
than  these,  but  certainly  no  lower,  I  should  put 
quiet,  contemplative,  reflective  people,  who  are 
theoretical  individualists.  They  are  not  very 
effective  people  generally,  and  they  have  a  certain 
poetical  quality  ;  they  cannot  originate,  but  they 
can  appreciate.     I  look  upon  all  these  individual- 


Contemplative  Life  291 

ists,  whether  practical  or  theoretical,  as  the 
average  mass  of  humanity,  the  common  soldiers, 
so  to  speak,  as  distinguished  from  the  officers. 
L,ife  is  for  them  a  discipline,  and  their  raison  d'Hre 
is  that  of  the  learner,  as  opposed  to  that  of  the 
teacher.  To  all  of  them,  experience  is  the  main 
point ;  they  are  all  in  the  school  of  God  ;  they  are 
being  prepared  for  something.  The  object  is  that 
they  should  apprehend  something,  and  the  chan- 
nel through  which  it  comes  matters  little.  They 
do  the  necessary  work  of  the  world  ;  they  sup- 
port those  who  from  infirmity,  weakness,  age,  or 
youth  cannot  support  themselves.  There  is 
room,  I  think,  in  the  world  for  both  kinds  of  indi- 
vidualist, though  the  contemplative  individual- 
ists  are  in  the  minority  ;  and  perhaps  it  must  be 
so,  because  a  certain  lassitude  is  characteristic  of 
them.  If  they  were  in  the  majority  in  any  nation, 
one  would  have  a  simple,  patient,  unambitious 
race,  who  would  tend  to  become  the  subjects  of 
other  more  vigorous  nations  :  our  Indian  empire 
is  a  case  in  point.  Probably  China  is  a  similar 
nation,  preserved  from  conquest  by  its  inaccessi- 
bility and  its  numerical  force.  Japan  is  an  in- 
stance of  the  strange  process  of  a  contemplative 
nation  becoming  a  practical  one.     The  curious 


292  The  Altar  Fire 

thing  is  that  Christianity,  which  is  essentially  a 
contemplative,  un militant,  unpatriotic,  unambi- 
tious force,  decidedly  oriental  in  type,  should 
have  become,  by  a  mysterious  transmutation,  the 
religion  of  active,  inventive,  conquering  nations. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  essence  of  Christianity 
lies  in  a  contemplative  simplicity,  and  that  it  is 
in  strong  opposition  to  what  is  commonly  called 
civilisation.  It  aims  at  improving  society  through 
the  uplifting  of  the  individual,  not  at  uplifting  the 
individual  through  social  agencies.  We  have  im- 
proved upon  that  in  our  latter-day  wisdom,  for 
the  Christian  ought  to  be  inherently  unpatriotic, 
or  rather  his  patriotism  ought  to  be  of  an  all-embrac- 
ing rather  than  of  an  antagonistic  kind.  I  do  not 
want  to  make  lofty  excuses  for  myself ;  my  own 
unworldliness  is  not  an  abnegation  at  all,  but  a 
deliberate  preference  for  obscurity.  Still  I  should 
maintain  that  the  vital  and  spiritual  strength  of 
a  nation  is  measured,  not  by  the  activity  of  its 
organisations,  but  by  the  number  of  quiet,  simple, 
virtuous,  and  high-minded  persons  that  it  con- 
tains. And  thus,  in  my  own  case,  though  the 
choice  is  made  for  me  by  temperament  and  cir- 
cumstances, I  have  no  pricking  of  conscience  on 
the  subject  of  my  scanty   activities.     It  is  not 


A  New  Friend  293 

mere  activity  that  makes  the  difference.  The 
danger  of  mere  activity  is  that  it  tends  to  make 
men  complacent,  to  lead  them  to  think  that  they 
are  following  the  paths  of  virtue,  when  they  are 
only  enmeshed  in  conventionality.  The  dangers 
of  the  quiet  life  are  indolence,  morbidity,  sloth, 
depression,  unmanliness ;  but  I  think  that  it  de- 
velops humility,  and  allows  the  daily  and  hourly 
message  of  God  to  sink  into  the  soul.  After  all, 
the  one  supreme  peril  is  that  of  self-satisfaction 
and  finality.  If  a  man  is  content  with  what  he 
is,  there  is  nothing  to  make  him  long  for  what  is 
higher.  Any  one  who  looks  around  him  with 
a  candid  gaze,  becomes  aware  that  our  life  is 
and  must  be  a  provisional  one,  that  it  has  some- 
how fallen  short  of  its  possibilities.  To  better  it 
is  the  best  of  all  courses  ;  but  next  to  that  it  is 
more  desirable  that  men  should  hope  for  and  de- 
sire a  greater  harmony  of  things,  than  that  they 
should  acquiesce  in  what  is  so  strangely  and 
sadly  amiss. 

June  18, 1890. 

I  have  made  a  new  friend,  whose  contact  and 
example  held  me  so  strangely  and  mysteriously, 
that  it  seems  to  me  almost  as  though  I  had  been 


294  The  Altar  Fire 

led  hither  that  I  might  know  him.  He  is  an  old 
and  lonely  man,  a  great  invalid,  who  lives  at  a 
little  manor-house  a  mile  or  two  away.  Maud 
knew  him  by  name,  but  had  never  seen  him. 
He  wrote  me  a  courtly  kind  of  note,  apologising 
for  being  unable  to  call,  and  expressing  a  hope 
that  we  might  be  able  to  go  and  see  him.  The 
house  stands  on  the  edge  of  the  village,  looking 
out  on  the  churchyard,  a  many-gabled  building 
of  grey  stone,  a  long  flagged  terrace  in  front  of 
it,  terminated  by  posts  with  big  stone  balls  ;  a 
garden  behind,  and  a  wood  behind  that — the 
whole  scene  unutterably  peaceful  and  beautiful. 
We  entered  by  a  little  hall,  and  a  kindly,  plain, 
middle-aged  woman,  with  a  Quaker-like  precision 
of  mien  and  dress,  came  out  to  greet  us,  with 
a  fresh  kindliness  that  had  nothing  conventional 
about  it.  She  said  that  her  uncle  was  not  very 
well,  but  she  thought  he  would  be  able  to  see  us. 
She  left  us  for  a  moment.  There  was  a  cleanness 
and  a  fragrance  about  the  old  house  that  was  very 
characteristic.  It  w^as  most  simply,  even  barely 
furnished,  but  with  a  settled,  ancient  look  about 
it,  that  gave  one  a  sense  of  long  association.  She 
presently  returned,  and  said,  smiling,  that  her 
uncle  would  like  to  see  us,  but  separatety,  as  he 


A  Walk  in  the  Garden        295 

was  very  far  from  strong.  She  took  Maud  away, 
and  returning,  walked  with  me  round  the  garden, 
which  had  the  same  dainty  and  simple  perfection 
about  it.  I  could  see  that  my  hostess  had  the 
poetical  passion  for  flowers  ;  she  knew  the  names 
of  all,  and  spoke  of  them  almost  as  one  might  of 
children.  This  was  very  wilful  and  impatient, 
and  had  to  be  kept  in  good  order  ;  that  one  re- 
quired coaxing  and  tender  usage.  We  went  on 
to  the  wood,  in  all  its  summer  foliage,  and  she 
showed  us  a  little  arbour  where  her  uncle  loved 
to  sit,  and  where  the  birds  would  come  at  his 
whistle.  *'  They  are  looking  at  us  out  of  the 
trees  everywhere,"  she  said,  ''  but  they  are  shy 
of  strangers  "—and  indeed  we  heard  soft  chirping 
and  rustling  everywhere.  An  old  dug  and  a  cat 
accompanied  us.  She  drew  my  attention  to  the 
latter.  "  Look  at  Pippa,"  she  said,  *'she  is  de- 
termined to  walk  with  us,  and  equally  determined 
not  to  seem  to  need  our  company,  as  if  she  had 
come  out  of  her  own  accord,  and  was  surprised  to 
find  us  in  her  garden."  Pippa,  hearing  her  name 
mentioned,  stalked  off  with  an  air  of  mystery  and 
dignity  into  the  bushes,  and  we  could  see  her  look- 
ing out  at  us  ;  but  when  we  continued  our  stroll, 
she  flew  out  past  us,  and  walked  on  stiffly  ahead. 


296  The  Altar  Fire 

''She  gets  a  great  deal  of  fun  out  of  her  Ittle 

dramas,"  said  Miss .     "  Now  poor  old  Rufus 

has  no  sense  of  drama  or  mystery — he  is  frankly 
glad  of  our  company  in  a  very  low  and  common 
way — there  is  nothing  aristocratic  about  him." 
Old  Rufus  looked  up  and  wagged  his  tail  humbly. 
Presently  she  went  on  to  talk  about  her  uncle, 
and  contrived  to  tell  me  a  great  deal  in  a  very 
few  words.  I  learnt  that  he  was  the  last  male 
representative  of  an  old  family,  who  had  long 
held  the  small  estate  here  ;  that  after  a  distin- 
guished Oxford  career,  he  had  met  with  a  serious 
accident  that  had  made  him  a  permanent  invalid. 
That  he  had  settled  down  here,  not  expecting  to 
live  more  than  a  few  years,  and  that  he  was  now 
over  seventy  ;  it  had  been  the  quietest  of  lives, 
she  said,  and  a  very  happy  one,  too,  in  spite  of 
his  disabilities.  He  read  a  great  deal,  and  inter- 
ested himself  in  local  affairs,  but  sometimes  for 
weeks  together  could  do  nothing.  I  gathered  that 
she  was  his  only  surviving  relation,  and  had  lived 
with  him  from  her  childhood.  ''  You  will  think," 
she  added,  laughing,  ''  that  he  is  the  kind  of  per- 
son who  is  shown  by  his  friends  as  a  wonderful 
old  man,  and  who  turns  out  to  be  a  person  like 
the  patriarch  Casby,  in  Little  Dorrit,  whose  sane- 


The  Squire  297 

tity,  like  Samson's  depended  entirely  upon  the 
length  of  his  hair.  But  he  is  not  in  the  least  like 
that,  and  I  will  leave  you  to  find  out  for  yourself 
whether  he  is  wonderful  or  not. ' ' 

There  was  a  touch  of  masculine  iron}'-  and 
humour  about  this  that  took  my  fancy  ;  and  we 

went  to  the  house,  Miss saying  that  two  new 

persons  in  one  afternoon  would  be  rather  a  strain 
for  her  uncle,  much  as  he  would  enjoy  it,  and  that 
his  enjoyment  must  be  severely  limited.  ''His 
illness,"  she  said,  "is  an  obscure  one  ;  it  is  a  want 
of  adequate  nervous  force  :  the  doctors  give  it 
names,  but  don't  seem  to  be  able  to  cure  or  re- 
lieve it ;  he  is  strong,  physically  and  mentally,  but 
the  least  over-exertion  or  over-strain  knocks  him 
up  ;  it  is  as  if  virtue  went  out  of  him ;  though 
a  partial  niece  may  say  that  he  has  a  plentiful 
stock  of  the  material." 

We  went  in,  and  proceeded  to  a  small  library, 
full  of  books,  w^ith  a  big  writing-table  in  the  win- 
dow. The  room  was  somewhat  dark,  and  the 
feet  fell  softly  on  a  thick  carpet.  There  was  no 
sort  of  luxury  about  the  room  ;  a  single  portrait 
hung  over  the  mantelpiece,  and  there  was  no 
trace  of  ornament  anywhere,  except  a  big  bowl 
of  roses  on  a  table. 


298  The  Altar  Fire 

Here,  with  a  low  table  beside  him  covered  with 
books,  and  a  little  reading-desk  pushed  aside,  I 

found  Mr.  sitting.    He  was  leaning  forwards 

in  his  chair,  and  Maud  was  sitting  opposite  him. 
They  appeared  to  be  silent,  but  with  the  natural 
silence  that  comes  of  reflection,  not  the  silence  of 
embarrassment.  Maud,  I  could  see,  was  strangely- 
moved.  He  rose  up  to  greet  me,  a  tall,  thin  figure, 
dressed  in  a  rough  grej^  suit.  There  was  little  sign 
of  physical  ill-health  about  him.  He  had  a  shock 
of  thick,  strong  hair,  perfectly  white.  His  face 
was  that  of  a  man  who  lived  much  in  the  open 
air,  clear  and  ascetic  of  complexion.  He  was  not 
at  all  what  would  be  called  handsome  ;  he  had 
rather  heavy  features,  big,  white  eyebrows,  and  a 
white  moustache.  His  manner  was  sedate  and 
extremely  unaffected,  not  hearty,  but  kindly,  and 
he  gave  me  a  quick  glance,  out  of  his  blue  eyes, 
which  seemed  to  take  swift  stock  of  me.  ' '  It  is 
very  kind  of  you  to  come  and  see  me,"  he  said  in 
a  measured  tone.  * '  Of  course  I  ought  to  have 
paid  my  respects  first,  but  I  ventured  to  take  the 
privilege  of  age  ;  and  moreover  I  am  the  obedient 
property  of  a  very  vigilant  guardian,  whose  orders 
I  implicitly  obey — *  Do  this,  and  he  doeth  it.'  '* 
He  smiled  at  his  niece  as  he  said  it,  and  she  said, 


A  Conversation  299 

"  Yes,  you  would  hardly  believe  how  peremptory 
I  can  be ;  and  I  am  going  to  show  it  by  taking 

Mrs.  away,  to  show  her  the  garden  ;  and  in 

twenty  minutes  I  must  take  Mr. away  too,  if 

he  will  be  so  kind  as  to  help  me  to  sustain  my 
authority." 

The  old  man  sate  down  again,  smiling,  and 
pointed  me  to  a  chair.  The  other  two  left  us  ; 
and  there  followed  what  was  to  me  a  very  memor- 
able conversation.  *'  We  must  make  the  best  use 
of  our  time,  you  see,"  he  said,  **  though  I  hope 
that  this  will  not  be  the  last  time  we  shall  meet. 
You  will  confer  a  very  great  obligation  on  me,  if 
you  can  sometimes  come  to  see  me— and  perhaps 
we  may  get  a  walk  together  occasionally.  So  we 
won't  waste  our  time  in  conventional  remarks," 
he  added  ;  * '  I  will  only  say  that  I  am  heartily 
glad  you  have  come  to  live  here,  and  I  am  sure 
you  will  find  it  a  beautiful  place — you  are  wise 
enough  to  prefer  the  country  to  the  town,  I 
gather."  Then  he  went  on  :  **  I  have  read  all 
your  books — I  did  not  read  them, ' '  he  added  with 
a  smile,  "that  I  might  talk  to  you  about  them, 
but  because  they  have  interested  me.  May  I  say 
that  each  book  has  been  stronger  and  better  than 
the  last,  except  in  one  case  "—he  mentioned  the 


300  The  Altar  Fire 

name  of  a  book  of  mine — "  in  which  you  seemed 
to  me  to  be  republishing  earlier  work."  ''  Yes," 
I  said,  '*  you  are  quite  right ;  I  was  tempted  by  a 
publisher  and  I  fell."  ''Well,"  he  said,  ''the 
book  was  a  good  one— and  there  is  something 
that  we  lose  as  we  grow  older,  a  sort  of  youthful- 
ness,  a  courageous  indiscretion,  a  beautiful  free- 
dom of  thought ;  but  we  can't  have  everything, 
and  one's  books  must  take  their  appropriate 
colours  from  the  mind.  May  I  say  that  I  think 
your  books  have  grown  more  and  more  mature, 
tolerant,  artistic,  wise  ? — and  the  last  was  simply 
admirable.  It  entirely  engrossed  me,  and  for  a 
blessed  day  or  two  I  lived  in  your  mind,  and  saw 
out  of  your  eyes.  I  am  sure  it  was  a  great  book 
— a  noble  and  a  large-hearted  book,  full  of  insight 
and  faith — the  best  kind  of  book."  I  murmured 
something;  and  he  said,  "You  may  think  it  is 
arrogant  of  me  to  speak  like  this ;  but  I  have 
lived  among  books,  and  I  am  sure  that  I  have 
a  critical  gift,  mainly  because  I  have  no  power  of 
expression.  You  know  the  best  kind  of  critics 
are  the  men  who  have  tried  to  write  books,  and 
have  failed,  so  long  as  their  failure  does  not  make 
them  envious  and  ungenerous  ;  I  have  failed 
many  times,  but  I  think  I  admire  good  work 


A  Confession  301 

all  the  more  for  that.  You  are  writing  now  ?  ' ' 
"  No,"  I  said,  '*  I  am  writing  nothing."  "  Well, 
I  am  sorry  to  hear  it,"  he  said,  '*  and  may  I  ven- 
ture to  ask  why  ?  "  "  Simply  because  I  cannot," 
I  said ;  and  now  there  came  upon  me  a  strange 
feeling,  the  same  sort  of  feeling  that  one  has  in 
answering  the  questions  of  a  great  and  compas- 
sionate physician,  who  assumes  the  responsibility 
of  one's  case.  Not  only  did  I  not  resent  these 
questions,  as  I  should  often  have  resented  them, 
but  it  seemed  to  give  me  a  sense  of  luxury  and 
security  to  give  an  account  of  myself  to  this  wise 
and  unaffected  old  man.  He  bent  his  brows  upon 
me  :  ' '  You  have  had  a  great  sorrow  lately  ?  '  * 
he  said.  "  Yes,"  I  said,  *'  we  have  lost  our  only 
boy,  nine  years  old."  "  Ah,"  he  said,  '*  a  sore 
stroke,  a  sore  stroke  !  "  and  there  was  a  deep 
tenderness  in  his  voice  that  made  me  feel  that 
I  should  have  liked  to  kneel  down  before  him, 
and  weep  at  his  knee,  with  his  hand  laid  in  bless- 
ing on  my  head.  We  sate  in  silence  for  a  few 
moments.  "  Is  it  this  that  has  stopped  your  writ- 
ing ?  "  he  said.  *'  No,"  I  said,  *'  the  power  had 
gone  from  me  before — I  could  not  originate,  I 
could  only  do  the  same  sort  of  work,  and  of 
weaker  quality  than  before."      "  Well,"  he  said, 


302  The  Altar  Fire 

"  I  don't  wonder  ;  the  last  book  must  have  been 
a  great  strain,  though  I  am  sure  you  were  happy 
when  you  wrote  it.  I  remember  a  friend  of  mine, 
a  great  Alpine  climber,  who  did  a  marvellous  feat 
of  climbing  some  unapproachable  peak — without 
any  sense  of  fatigue,  he  told  me,  all  pure  enjoy- 
ment— but  he  had  a  heart-attack  the  next  day,  and 
paid  the  penalty  of  his  enjoyment.  He  could  not 
climb  for  some  years  after  that."  "  Yes,"  I  said, 
' '  I  think  that  has  been  my  case — but  my  fear  is 
that  if  I  lose  the  habit — and  I  seem  to  have  lost 
it — I  shall  never  be  able  to  take  it  up  again." 
"No,  you  need  not  fear  that,"  he  replied;  *'if 
something  is  given  you  to  say,  you  will  be  able  to 
say  it,  and  say  it  better  than  ever — but  no  doubt 
you  feel  very  much  lost  without  it.  How  do  you 
fill  the  time  ?  "  "I  hardly  know,"  I  said,  '*  not 
very  profitably — I  read,  I  teach  my  daughter,  I 
muddle  along."  ''  Well,"  he  said,  smiling,  ' '  the 
hours  in  which  we  muddle  along  are  not  our  worst 
hours.  You  believe  in  God  ?  ' '  The  suddenness 
of  this  question  surprised  me.  ' '  Yes, ' '  I  said,  * '  I 
believe  in  God.  I  cannot  disbelieve.  Something 
has  placed  me  where  I  am,  something  urges  me 
along  ;  there  is  a  will  behind  me,  I  am  sure  of 
that.     But  I  do  not  know  whether  that  will  is 


The  Squire's  Story  303 

just  or  unjust,  kind  or  unkind,  benevolent  or 
indifferent.  I  have  had  much  happiness  and 
great  prosperity,  but  I  have  had  to  bear  also 
things  whicb  are  inconceivably  repugnant  to  me, 
things  which  seem  almost  satanically  adapted  to 
hurt  and  wound  me  in  my  tenderest  and  inner- 
most feelings,  trials  which  seem  to  be  concocted 
with  an  almost  infernal  appropriateness,  not  things 
which  I  could  hope  to  bear  with  courage  and  faith, 
but  things  which  I  can  only  endure  with  rebel- 
lious resistance."  *'Yes,"  he  said,  *' I  under- 
stand you  perfectly  ;  but  does  not  their  very  ap- 
propriateness, the  satanical  ingenuity  of  which 
you  speak,  help  you  to  feel  that  they  are  not  for- 
tuitous, but  sent  deliberately  to  yourself  and  to 
none  other  ?  "  "  Yes,"  I  said,  *'  I  see  that ;  but 
how  can  I  believe  in  the  justice  of  a  discipline 
which  1  could  not  inflict,  I  will  not  say  upon 
a  dearly  loved  child,  but  upon  the  most  relentless 
and  stubborn  foe."  "  Ah,"  said  he,  "  now  I  see 
your  heart  bare,  the  very  palpitating  beat  of  the 
blood.  Do  you  think  you  are  alone  in  this  ?  Let 
me  tell  you  my  own  story.  Over  fifty  years  ago 
I  left  Oxford  with,  I  really  think  I  may  say, 
almost  everything  before  me — everything,  that 
is,  which  is  open   to  an  instinctively  cheerful, 


304  The  Altar  Fire 

temperate,  capable,  active  man — I  was  not  rich, 
but  I  could  afford  to  wait  to  earn  money.  I  was 
sociable  and  popular  ;  I  was  endowed  with  an  im- 
mense appetite  for  variety  of  experience  ;  I  don't 
think  that  there  was  anything  which  appeared 
to  me  to  be  uninteresting.  But  I  could  persevere 
too,  I  could  stick  to  work,  I  had  taken  a  good 
degree.  Then  an  accidental  fall  off  a  chair,  on 
which  I  was  standing  to  get  a  book,  laid  me  on 
my  back  for  a  time.  I  fretted  over  it  at  first,  but 
when  I  got  about  again,  I  found  that  I  was  a  man 
maimed  for  life.  I  don't  know  what  the  injury 
was — some  obscure  lesion  of  the  spinal  marrow 
or  brain,  I  believe — some  flaw  about  the  size  of  a 
pin's  head — the  doctors  have  never  made  out. 
But  every  time  that  I  plunged  into  work,  I  broke 
down  ;  for  a  long  time  I  thought  I  should  strug- 
gle through ;  but  at  last  I  became  aware  that  I 
was  on  the  shelf,  with  other  cracked  jars,  for  life 
— I  can't  tell  you  what  I  went  through,  what 
agonies  of  despair  and  rebellion.  I  thought  that 
at  least  literature  was  left  me.  I  had  always  been 
fond  of  books,  and  was  a  good  scholar,  as  it  is 
called ;  but  I  soon  became  aware  that  I  had  no 
gift  of  expression,  and  moreover  that  I  could  not 
hope  to  acquire  it,  because  any  concentrated  effort 


The  Problem  305 

threw  me  into  illness.  I  was  an  ambitious  fellow, 
and  success  was  closed  to  me — I  could  not  even 
hope  to  be  useful.  I  tried  several  things,  but 
always  with  the  same  result ;  and  at  last  I  fell 
into  absolute  despair,  and  just  lived  on,  praying 
daily  and  even  hourly  that  I  might  die.  But  I 
did  not  die,  and  then  at  last  it  dawned  upon  me, 
like  a  lightening  sunrise,  that  this  was  life  for  me  ; 
this  was  my  problem,  these  my  limitations  ;  that  I 
was  to  make  the  best  I  could  out  of  a  dulled  and 
shattered  life ;  that  I  was  to  learn  to  be  happy, 
even  useful,  in  spite  of  it — that  just  as  other  peo- 
ple were  given  activity,  practical  energy,  success, 
to  learn  from  them  the  right  balance,  the  true 
proportion  of  life,  and  not  to  be  submerged  and 
absorbed  in  them,  so  to  me  was  given  a  simpler 
problem  still,  to  have  all  the  temptations  of  activ- 
ity removed — temptations  to  which  with  my  zest 
for  experience  I  might  have  fallen  an  easy  victim 
— and  to  keep  my  courage  high,  my  spirit  pure 
and  expectant,  if  I  could,  waiting  upon  God. 
This  little  estate  fell  to  me  soon  afterwards,  and  I 
soon  saw  what  a  tender  gift  it  was,  because  it  gave 
me  a  home  ;  every  other  source  of  interest  and 
pleasure  was  removed,  because  the  simplest  visits, 
the  mildest  distractions  were  too  much  for  me — 


3o6  The  Altar  Fire 

the  jarring  of  any  kind  of  vehicle  upset  me.  By 
what  slow  degrees  I  attained  happiness  I  can 
hardly  say.  But  now,  looking  back,  I  see  this — 
that  whereas  others  have  to  learn  by  hard  expe- 
rience, that  detachment,  self-purification,  self-con- 
trol are  the  only  conditions  of  happiness  on  earth, 
I  was  detached,  purified,  controlled  by  God  Him- 
self. I  was  detached,  because  my  life  was  utterly 
precarious,  I  was  taught  purification  and  control, 
because  whereas  more  robust  people  can  defer 
and  even  defy  the  penalties  of  luxury,  comfort, 
gross  desires,  material  pleasures,  I  was  forced, 
every  day  and  hour,  to  deny  myself  the  smallest 
freedom — I  was  made  ascetic  by  necessity.  Then 
came  a  greater  happiness  still ;  for  years  I  was 
lost  in  a  sort  of  individualistic  self-absorption,  with 
no  thoughts  of  anything  but  God  and  His  concern 
with  myself— often  hopeful  and  beautiful  enough 
— when  I  found  myself  drawn  into  nearer  and 
dearer  relationships  with  those  around  me.  That 
came  through  my  niece,  whom  I  adopted  as  an 
orphan  child,  and  who  is  one  of  those  people  who 
live  naturally  and  instinctively  in  the  lives  of 
other  people.  I  got  to  know  all  the  inhabitants  of 
this  little  place — simple  country  people,  you  will 
say — but  as  interesting,  as  complex  in  emotion 


God's  Purposes  307 

and  intellect,  as  any  other  circle  in  the  world. 
The  only  reason  why  one  ever  thinks  people  dull 
and  limited,  is  because  one  does  not  know  them  ; 
if  one  talks  directly  and  frankly  to  people,  one 
passes  through  the  closed  doors  at  once.  Looking 
back,  I  can  see  that  I  have  been  used  by  God,  not 
with  mere  compassion  and  careless  tenderness, 
but  with  an  intent,  exacting,  momentary  love,  of 
an  almost  awful  intensity  and  intimacy.  It  is  the 
same  with  all  of  us,  if  we  can  only  see  it.  Our 
faults,  our  weaknesses,  our  qualities  good  or  bad, 
are  all  bestowed  with  an  anxious  and  deliberate 
care.  The  reason  why  some  of  us  make  shipwreck 
— and  even  that  is  mercifully  and  lovingly  dis- 
pensed to  us — is  because  we  will  not  throw  our- 
selves on  the  side  of  God  at  every  moment.  Every 
time  that  the  voice  says,  '  Do  this,'  or  *  Leave  that 
undone,'  and  we  reply  fretfully,  *  Ah,  but  I  have 
arranged  otherwise,'  we  take  a  step  backwards. 
He  knocks  daily,  hourly,  momently,  at  the  door, 
and  when  we  have  once  opened,  and  He  is  en- 
tered, we  have  no  desire  again  but  to  do  His  will 
to  the  uttermost. ' '  He  was  silent  for  a  moment, 
his  eyes  in-dwelling  upon  some  secret  thought; 
then  he  said,  *'  Everything  about  you,  your  books, 
your  dear  wife,  your  words,  your  face,  tell  me  that 


3oS  The  Altar  Fire 

you  are  very  near  indeed  to  the  way — a  step  or 
two,  and  you  are  free  !  "  He  sate  back  for  a 
moment,  as  though  exhausted,  and  then  said  : 
"  You  will  forgive  me  for  speaking  so  frankly, 
but  I  feel  from  hour  to  hour  how  short  my  time 
may  be ;  and  I  had  no  doubt  when  I  saw  you, 
even  before  I  saw  you,  that  I  should  have  some 
message  to  give  you,  some  tidings  of  hope  and 
patience." 

I  despair,  as  I  write,  of  giving  any  idea  of  the 
impressiveness  of  the  old  man  j  now  that  I  have 
written  down  his  talk,  it  seems  abrupt  and  even 
strained.  It  was  neither.  The  perfect  naturalness 
and  tranquillity  of  it  all,  the  fatherly  smile,  the 
little  gestures  of  his  frail  hand,  interpreted  and 
filled  up  the  gape,  till  I  felt  as  though  I  had 
known  him  all  my  life,  and  that  he  was  to  me  as 
a  dear  father,  who  saw  my  needs,  and  even  loved 
me  for  what  I  was  not  and  for  what  I  might  be. 

At  this  point  Miss came  in,  and  led  me 

away.  As  Maud  and  I  walked  back,  we  spoke 
to  each  other  of  what  we  had  seen  and  heard. 
He  had  talked  to  her,  she  said,  very  simply  about 
Alec.  "I  don't  know  how  it  was,"  she  added, 
"but  I  found  myself  telling  him  everything  that 
was  in  my  mind  and  heart,   and   it  seemed  as 


Enlightenment  309 

though  he  knew  it  all  before."  "  Yes,  indeed," 
I  said,  "  he  made  me  desire  with  all  my  heart  to 
be  different — and  yet  that  is  not  true  either, 
because  he  made  me  wish  not  to  be  something 
outside  of  myself,  but  something  inside,  some- 
thing that  was  there  all  the  time  ;  I  seem  never 
to  have  suspected  what  religion  was  before ;  it 
had  always  seemed  to  me  a  thing  that  one  put  on 
and  wore,  like  a  garment ;  but  now  it  seems  to 
me  to  be  the  most  natural,  simple,  and  beautiful 
thing  in  the  world  ;  to  consist  in  being  oneself, 
in  fact."  "  Yes,  that  is  exactly  it,"  said  Maud, 
*'  I  could  not  have  put  it  into  words,  but  that  is 
how  I  feel."  "  Yes,"  I  said,  "  I  saw,  in  a  flash, 
that  life  is  not  a  series  of  things  that  happen  to 
us,  but  our  very  selves.  It  is  not  a  question  of 
obeying,  and  doing,  and  acting,  but  a  question  of 
being.  Well,  it  has  been  a  wonderful  experience  ; 
and  yet  he  told  me  nothing  that  I  did  not  know. 
God  in  us,  not  God  with  us."      And  presently 

I  added:   "  If  I   were  never  to  see   Mr. 

again,  I  should  feel  he  had  somehow  done  more 
for  me  than  a  hundred  conversations  and  a 
thousand  books.  It  was  like  the  falling  of  the 
spirit  at  Pentecost." 

That  strange  sense  of  an  uplifted  freedom,  of 


3IO  The  Altar  Fire 

willing  co-operation  has  dwelt  with  me,  with  us 
both,  for  many  days.  I  dare  not  say  that  life  has 
become  easy  ;  that  the  cloud  has  rolled  away  ; 
that  there  have  not  been  hours  of  dismay  and 
dreariness  and  sorrow.  But  it  is,  I  am  sure,  a 
turning-point  of  my  life  ;  the  way  which  has  led 
me  downwards,  deepening  and  darkening,  seems 
to  have  reached  its  lowest  point,  and  to  be  ascend- 
ing from  the  gloom  ;  and  all  from  the  words  of  a 
simple,  frail  old  man,  sitting  among  his  books 
in  a  panelled  parlour,  in  a  soft,  summer  after- 
noon. 


July  lo,  1890. 
I  have  been  sitting  out,  this  hot,  still  afternoon, 
upon  the  lawn,  under  the  shade  of  an  old  lime- 
tree,  with  its  sweet  scent  coming  and  going  in 
wafts,  with  the  ceaseless  murmur  of  the  bees  all 
about  it ;  but  for  that  slumberous  sound,  the 
place  was  utterly  still ;  the  sun  lay  warm  on  the 
old  house,  on  the  box  hedges  of  the  garden,  on 
the  rich  foliage  of  the  orchard.  I  have  been  lost 
in  a  strange  dream  of  peace  and  thankfulness, 
only  wishing  the  sweet  hours  could  stay  their 
course,  and  abide  with  me  thus  for  ever.  Part  of 
the  time  Maggie  sate  with  me,  reading.    We  were 


The  New  Life  311 

both  silent,  but  glad  to  be  together ;  every  now 
and  then  she  looked  up  and  smiled  at  me.  I  was 
not  even  visited  by  the  sense  that  used  to  haunt 
me,  that  I  must  bestir  myself,  do  something,  think 
of  something.  It  is  not  that  I  am  less  active  than 
formerly ;  it  is  the  reverse.  I  do  a  number  of 
little  things  here,  trifling  things  they  would 
seem,  not  worth  mentioning,  mostly  connected 
with  the  village  or  the  parish.  My  writing  has 
retired  far  into  the  past,  like  a  sort  of  dream.  I 
never  even  plan  to  begin  again.  I  teach  a  little, 
not  Maggie  only,  but  some  boys  and  girls  of  the 
place,  who  have  left  school,  but  are  glad  to  be 
taught  in  the  evenings.  I  have  plenty  of  good 
easy  friends  here,"  and  have  the  blessed  sense  of 
feeling  myself  wanted.  Best  of  all,  a  sense  of 
poisonous  hurry  seems  to  have  gone  out  of  my 
life.  In  the  old  days  I  was  always  stretching  on 
to  something,  the  end  of  my  book,  the  next  book 
— never  content  with  the  present,  always  hoping 
that  the  future  would  bring  me  the  satisfaction  I 
seemed  to  miss.  I  did  not  always  know  it  at  the 
time,  for  I  was  often  happy  when  I  was  writing 
a  book — but  it  was,  at  best,  a  rushing,  tortured 
sort  of  happiness.  My  great  sorrow — what  has 
that  become  to  me?    A  beautiful  thing,  full  of 


312  The  Altar  Fire 

patience  and  hope.  What  but  that  has  taught 
me  to  learn  to  live  for  the  moment,  to  take  the 
bitter  experiences  of  life  as  they  come,  not  crush- 
ing out  the  sweetness  and  flinging  the  rind  aside, 
but  soberly,  desirously,  only  eager  to  get  from 
the  moment  what  it  is  meant  to  bring.  Even  the 
very  shrinking  back  from  a  bitter  duty,  the  indo- 
lent rejection  of  the  thought  that  touches  one's 
elbow,  bidding  one  again  and  again  arise  and  go, 
means  something ;  to  defer  one's  pleasure,  to 
break  the  languid  dream,  to  take  up  the  tiny  task, 
what  strength  is  there  !  Thus  no  burden  seems 
too  heavy,  too  awkward,  too  slippery,  too  ill- 
shaped,  but  one  can  lift  it.  The  yoke  is  easy, 
because  one  bears  it  in  quiet  confidence,  not 
overtaxing  ability  or  straining  hope.  Instead  of 
watching  life,  as  from  high  castle  windows,  feel- 
ing it  common  and  unclean,  not  to  be  mingled 
with,  I  am  in  it  and  of  it.  And  what  is  become 
of  all  my  old  dreams  of  art,  of  the  secluded 
worship,  the  lonely  rapture  !  Well,  it  is  all 
there,  somehow,  flowing  inside  life,  like  a  stream 
that  is  added  to  a  river,  not  like  a  leaf  drawn 
aside  from  the  current.  The  force  I  spent  on  art 
has  gone  to  swell  life  and  augment  it ;  it  heightens 
perception,  it  intensifies  joy — it  was  the  fevered 


The  Soul's  Growth  313 

lust  of  expression  that  drained  the  vigour  of  my 
days  and  hours. 

But  am  I  then  satisfied  with  the  part  I  play  ? 
Do  I  feel  that  my  faculties  are  being  used,  that  I 
am  lending  a  hand  to  the  great  sum  of  toil  ?  I 
used  to  feel  that,  or  thought  I  felt  it,  in  the  old 
days,  but  now  I  see  that  I  walked  in  a  vain  delu- 
sion, serving  my  own  joy,  my  own  self-importance. 
Not  that  I  think  my  old  toil  all  ill-spent ;  that  was 
my  work  before,  as  surely  as  it  is  not  now  ;  but 
the  old  intentness,  the  old  watching  for  tone  and 
gesture,  for  action  and  situation,  that  has  all 
shifted  its  gaze,  and  waits  upon  God.  It  may  be, 
nay  it  is  certain,  that  I  have  far  to  go,  much  to 
learn  ;  but  now  that  I  may  perhaps  recover  my 
strength,  life  spreads  out  into  sunny  shallows, 
moving  slow  and  clear.  It  is  like  a  soft  sweet 
interlude  between  two  movements  of  fire  and 
glow ;  for  I  see  now,  what  then  I  could  not  see, 
that  something  in  my  life  was  burnt  and  shrivelled 
up  in  my  enforced  silence  and  in  my  bitter  loss — 
then,  when  I  felt  my  energies  at  their  lowest, 
when  mind  and  bodily  frame  alike  flapped  loose, 
like  a  flag  of  smut  upon  the  bars  of  a  grate,  I  was 
living  most  intensely,  and  the  soul's  wings  grew 
fast,  unfolding  plume  and  feather.     It  was  then 


314  The  Altar  Fire 

that  life  burnt  with  its  fiercest  heat,  when  it 
withdrew  me,  faintly  struggling,  away  from  all 
that  pleased  and  caressed  the  mind  and  the  body, 
into  the  silent  glow  of  the  furnace.  Strange  that 
I  should  not  have  perceived  it  !  But  now  I  see 
in  all  maimed  and  broken  lives,  the  lives  that 
seem  most  idle  and  helpless,  most  futile  and  vain, 
that  the  same  fierce  flame  is  burning  bright  about 
them ;  that  the  reason  why  they  cannot  spread 
and  flourish,  like  flowers,  in  the  free  air,  is 
because  the  strong  roots  are  piercing  deep,  en- 
twining themselves  firmly  among  the  stones, 
piercing  the  cold  silent  crevices  of  the  earth. 
Ay,  indeed !  The  coal  in  the  furnace,  burning 
passively  and  hotly,  is  as  much  a  force,  though 
it  but  lies  and  suffers,  as  the  energy  that  throbs 
in  the  leaping  piston-rod  or  the  rushing  wheel. 
Not  in  success  and  noise  and  triumph  does  the 
soul  grow ;  when  the  body  rejoices,  when  the 
mind  is  prodigal  of  seed,  the  spirit  sits  within  in 
a  darkened  chamber,  like  a  folded  chrysalis,  stiff" 
as  a  corpse,  in  a  faint  dream.  But  when  triumphs 
have  no  savour,  when  the  cheek  grows  pale  and 
the  eye  darkens,  then  the  dark  chrysalis  opens, 
and  the  rainbow  wings  begin  to  spread  and  glow, 
uncrumpling  to  the  suns  of  paradise.     My  soul 


Maud  3i>S 

has  taken  wings,  and  sits  poised  and  aelicate, 
faint  with  long  travail,  perhaps  to  haver  awhile 
about  the  garden  blooms  a:/tl  the  chalices  of 
honied  flowers,  perhaps  to  take  her  flight  beyond 
the  glade,  over  the  forest,  to  the  home  of  her  de- 
sirous heart.  I  know  not !  Yet  in  these  sunlit 
hours,  with  the  slow,  strong  pulse  of  life  beating 
round  me,  it  seems  that  vSomething  is  preparing 
for  one  struck  dumb  and  crushed  with  sorrow  to 
the  earth.  How  soft  a  thrill  of  hope  throbs  in 
the  summer  air !  How  the  bird- voices  in  the 
thicket,  and  the  rustle  of  burnished  leaves,  and 
the  hum  of  insects,  blend  into  a  secret  harmony, 
a  cadence  half- heard  !  I  wait  in  love  and  con- 
fidence ;  and  through  the  trees  of  the  garden  One 
seems  ever  to  draw  nearer,  walking  in  the  cool  of 
the  day,  at  whose  bright  coming  the  flowers  look 
upwards  unashamed.  Shall  I  be  bidden  to  meet 
Him  !     Will  He  call  me  loud  or  low  ? 

August  25,  1890. 
Maud  has  been  ailing  of  late — how  much  it  is 
impossible  to  say,  because  she  is  always  cheerful 
and  indomitable.  She  never  complains,  she  never 
neglects  a  duty ;  but  I  have  found  her,  several 
times  of  late,  sitting  alone,  unoccupied,  musing — 


3i6  The  Altar  Fire 

that  is"  unlike  her — and  with  a  certain  shadow 
upon  her  face  that  I  do  not  recognise  ;  but  the 
strange,  new,  ovve^t  companionship  in  which  we 
live  seems  at  the  sai^e  time  to  have  heightened 
and  deepened.  I  seem  to  have  lived  so  close  to 
her  all  these  years,  and  yeu-jf  late  to  have  found 
a  new  and  diJBferent  personality  in  her  which  I 
never  suspected.  Perhaps  we  have  both  changed 
somewhat ;  I  do  not  feel  the  difference  in  myself. 
But  there  is  something  larger,  stronger,  deeper, 
about  Maud  now,  as  if  she  had  ascended  into  a 
purer  air,  and  caught  sight  of  some  unexpected, 
undreamed-of  distance  ;  but  instead  of  giving  her 
remoteness,  she  seems  to  be  sharing  her  wider 
outlook  with  me  ;  she  was  never  a  great  talker — 
perhaps  it  was  that  in  old  days  my  own  mind 
ran  like  an  ebullient  fountain,  evoking  no  definite 
response,  needing  no  interchange  ;  but  she  was 
always  a  sayer  of  penetrating  things.  She  has 
a  wonderful  gift  of  seeing  the  firm  issue  through 
a  cloud  of  mixed  suggestions  ;  but  of  late  there 
has  been  a  richness,  a  generosity,  a  wisdom  about 
her  which  I  have  never  recognised  before.  I 
think,  with  contrition,  that  I  under-estimated,  not 
her  judgment  or  instinct,  but  her  intellect.  I  am 
sure  I  lived  too  much  in  the  intellectual  region, 


The  Sanctuary  of  the  Soul    3 1 7 

and  did  not  guess  how  little  it  really  solves,  in 
what  a  limited  region  it  disports  itself.  I  see  that 
this  wisdom  was  hers  all  along,  and  that  I  have 
been  blind  to  it ;  but  now  that  I  have  travelled 
out  of  the  intellectual  region,  I  perceive  what  a 
much  greater  thing  that  further  wisdom  is  than 
I  had  thought,  lyiving  in  art  and  for  art,  I  used 
to  believe  that  the  intellectual  structure  was  the 
one  thing  that  mattered,  but  now  I  perceive  dimly 
that  the  mind  is  but  on  the  threshold  of  the  soul ; 
and  that  the  artist  may,  nay  does,  often  perceive, 
by  virtue  of  his  trained  perception,  what  is  going 
on  in  the  sanctuary  ;  but  he  is  as  one  who  kneels 
in  a  church  at  some  great  solemnity — he  sees  the 
movements  and  gestures  of  the  priests  ;  he  sees 
the  holy  rite  proceeding,  he  hears  the  sacred 
words  ;  something  of  the  inner  spirit  of  it  all 
flows  out  to  him  ;  but  the  viewless  current  of 
prayer,  the  fiery  ray  streaming  down  from  God, 
that  smites  itself  into  the  earthly  symbol — all  this 
is  hidden  from  him.  Those  priests,  intent  upon 
the  sacred  work,  feel  something  that  they  not 
only  do  not  care  to  express,  but  which  they 
would  not  if  they  could  ;  it  would  be  a  profana- 
tion of  the  awful  mystery.  The  artist  is  not 
profane  in  expressing  what  he  perceives,  because 


o 


1 8  The  Altar  Fire 


he  can  be  the  interpreter  of  the  symbol  to  others 
more  remote  ;  but  he  is  not  a  real  partaker  of  the 
mystery  ;  he  is  a  seer  of  the  word  and  not  a  doer. 
What  now  amazes  me  is  that  Maud,  to  whom  the 
heart  of  the  matter,  the  inner  emotion,  has  always 
been  so  real,  could  fling  herself,  and  all  for  love 
of  me,  into  the  outer  work  of  intellectual  ex- 
pression. I  have  always,  God  forgive  me,  be- 
lieved my  work  to  be  in  some  way  superior  to 
hers.  I  lo\  ed  her  truly,  but  with  a  certain  con- 
descension of  mind,  as  one  loves  a  child  or  a 
flower  ;  and  now  I  see  that  she  has  been  serenely- 
ahead  of  me  all  the  time,  and  it  has  been  she  that 
has  helped  me  along  ;  I  have  been  as  the  spoilt 
and  wilful  child,  and  she  as  the  sweet  and  wise 
mother,  who  has  listened  to  its  prattle,  and 
thrown  herself,  with  all  the  infinite  patience  of 
love,  into  the  tiny  bounded  dreams.  I  have  told 
her  all  this  as  simply  as  I  could,  and  though  she 
deprecated  it  all  generously  and  humbly,  I  feel 
the  blessed  sense  of  having  caught  her  up  upon 
the  way,  of  seeing — how  dimly  and  imperfectly  ! 
— what  I  have  owed  her  all  along.  1  am  over- 
whelmed with  a  shame  which  it  is  a  sweet 
pleasure  to  confess  to  her  ;  and  now  that  I  can 
spare  her  a  little,  anticipate  her  wishes,  save  her 


A  Shadow  319 

trouble,  it  is  an  added  joy  ;  a  service  that  I  can 
render  and  which  she  loves  to  receive.  I  never 
thought  of  these  things  in  the  old  days  ;  she  had 
always  planned  everything,  arranged  everything 
forestalled  everything. 

I  have  at  last  persuaded  her  to  come  up  to  town 
and  see  a  doctor.  We  plan  to  go  abroad  for  a 
time.  I  would  earn  the  means  if  I  could,  but,  if 
not,  we  will  sacrifice  a  little  of  our  capital,  and  I 
will  replace  it,  if  I  can,  by  some  hack-work  ; 
though  I  have  a  dislike  of  being  paid  for  my  name 
and  reputation,  and  not  my  best  work. 

I  am  not  exactly  anxious  ;  it  is  all  so  slight, 
what  they  call  a  want  of  tone,  and  she  has  been 
through  so  much  ;  even  so,  my  anxiety  is  con- 
quered by  the  joy  of  being  able  to  serve  her  a  little; 
and  that  joy  brings  us  together,  hour  by  hour. 

September  6,  1890. 
Again  the  shadow  comes  down  over  my  life. 
The  doctor  says  plainly  that  Maud's  heart  is 
weak  ;  but  he  adds  that  there  is  nothing  organic- 
ally wrong,  though  she  must  be  content  to  live 
the  life  of  an  invalid  for  a  time  ;  he  was  reassuring 
and  quiet ;  but  I  cannot  keep  a  dread  out  of  my 
mind,  though  Maud  herself  is  more  serene  than 


320  The  Altar  Fire 

she  has  been  for  a  long  time  ;  she  says  that  she 
was  aware  that  she  was  somehow  overtaxing 
herself,  and  it  is  a  comfort  to  be  forbidden,  in  so 
many  words,  to  abstain  a  little.  We  are  to  live 
quietly  at  home  for  a  while,  until  she  is  stronger, 
and  then  we  shall  go  abroad. 

Maud  does  not  come  down  in  the  mornings 
now,  and  she  is  forbidden  to  do  more  than  take  the 
shortest  stroll.  I  read  to  her  a  good  deal  in  the 
mornings ;  Maggie  has  proudly  assumed  the 
functions  of  housekeeper ;  the  womanly  instinct 
for  these  things  is  astonishing.  A  man  would  far 
sooner  not  have  things  comfortable,  than  have  the 
trouble  of  providing  them  and  seeing  about  them. 
Women  do  not  care  about  comforts  for  themselves ; 
they  prefer  haphazard  meals,  trays  brought  into 
rooms,  vague  arrangements;  and  yet  they  seem  to 
know  by  instinct  what  a  man  likes,  even  though 
he  does  not  express  it,  and  though  he  would  not 
take  any  trouble  to  secure  it.  What  centuries 
of  trained  instincts  must  have  gone  to  produce 
this.  The  new  order  has  given  me  a  great  deal 
more  of  Maggie's  society.  We  are  sent  out  in  the 
afternoon,  because  Maud  likes  to  be  quite  alone  to 
receive  the  neighbours,  small  and  great,  that  come 
to  see  her,  now  that  she  cannot  go  to  see  them. 


Maggie  321 

She  tells  me  frankly  that  my  presence  only  em- 
barrasses them.  And  thus  another  joy  has  come 
to  me,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  things  that  has 
ever  happened  to  me  in  my  life,  and  which  I  can 
hardly  find  words  to  express — the  contact  with, 
the  free  sight  of  the  mind  and  soul  of  an  absolutely 
pure,  simple,  and  ingenuous  girl.  Maggie's  mind 
has  opened  like  a  flower.  She  talks  to  me  with 
perfect  openness  of  all  she  feels  and  thinks ;  to 
walk  thus,  hour  by  hour,  with  my  child's  arm 
through  my  own,  her  wide-opened,  beautiful  eyes 
looking  in  mine,  her  light  step  beside  me,  with  all 
her  pretty  caressing  ways — it  seems  to  me  a  taste 
of  the  purest  and  sweetest  love  I  have  ever  felt. 
It  is  like  the  rapture  of  a  lover,  but  without  any 
shadow  of  the  desirous  element  that  mingles  so 
fiercely  and  thirstily  with  our  mortal  loves,  to  find 
myself  dear  to  her.  I  have  a  poignant  hunger  of 
the  heart  to  save  her  from  any  touch  of  pain,  to 
smooth  her  path  for  her,  to  surround  her  with 
beauty  and  sweetness.  I  did  not  guess  that  the 
world  held  any  love  quite  like  this  ;  there  seems 
no  touch  of  selfishness  about  it ;  my  love  lavishes 
itself,  asking  for  nothing  in  return,  except  that  I 
may  be  dear  to  her  as  she  to  me. 

Her  fancies,  her  hopes  her  dreams—how  inex- 

8X 


32  2  The  Altar  Fire 

plicable,  how  adorable  !  She  said  to  me  to-day 
that  she  corild  never  marry,  and  that  it  was  a  real 
pity  that  she  could  not  have  children  of  her  own 
without.  "  We  don't  want  any  one  else,  do  we, 
except  some  little  children  to  amuse  us."  She  is 
a  highly  imaginative  child,  and  one  of  our  amuse- 
ments is  to  tell  each  other  long  interminable  tales 
of  the  adventures  of  a  family  we  call  the  Pick- 
fords.  I  have  lost  all  count  of  their  names  and 
ages,  their  comings  and  goings;  but  Maggie 
never  makes  a  mistake  about  them,  and  they 
seem  to  her  like  real  people  ;  and  when  I  some- 
times plunge  them  into  disaster,  she  is  so  deeply 
aflfected  that  the  disasters  have  all  to  be  softly  re- 
paired. The  Pickfords  must  have  had  a  very 
happy  life ;  the  kind  of  life  that  people  created 
and  watched  over  by  a  tender,  patient,  and  de- 
tailed Providence  might  live.  How  different  from 
the  real  world  ! 

But  I  don't  want  Maggie  to  live  in  the  real 
world  yet  awhile.  It  will  all  come  pouring  in 
upon  her,  sorrow,  anxiety,  weariness,  no  doubt — 
alas,  that  it  should  be  so !  Perhaps  some  people 
would  blame  me,  would  say  that  more  discipline 
would  be  bracing,  wholesome,  preparatory.  But 
I  don't  believe  that.     I  had  far  rather  that  she 


Stroke  upon  Stroke  323 

learnt  that  life  was  tender,  gentle,  and  sweet — and 
then  if  she  has  to  face  trouble,  she  will  have  the 
strength  of  feeling  that  the  tenderness,  gentleness, 
and  sweetness  are  the  real  stuff  of  life,  waiting  for 
her  behind  the  cloud.  I  don't  want  to  disillusion 
her ;  I  want  to  establish  her  faith  in  happiness 
and  love,  so  that  it  cannot  be  shaken.  That  is  a 
better  philosophy,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  than 
the  stoical  fortitude  that  anticipates  dreariness, 
that  draws  the  shadow  over  the  sun,  that  over- 
values endurance.  One  endures  by  instinct ;  but 
one  must  be  trained  to  love. 

February  6,  1891. 
It  is  months  since  I  have  opened  this  book  ;  it 
has  lain  on  my  table  all  through  the  dreadful 
hours — I  write  the  word  down  conventionally, 
and  yet  it  is  not  the  right  word  at  all,  because  I 
have  merely  been  stunned  and  numbed.  I  simply 
could  not  suffer  any  more.  I  smiled  to  myself,  as 
the  man  in  the  story,  who  was  broken  on  the 
wheel,  smiled  when  they  struck  the  seconc^  and 
the  third  blow.  I  knew  why  he  smiled  ;  it  was 
because  he  had  dreaded  it  so  much,  and  when  it 
came  there  was  nothing  to  dread,  because  he 
simply  did  not  feel  it. 


324  The  Altar  Fire 

To-night  I  just  pick  up  idly  the  dropped  thread. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  sign,  this  faint  desire  to  make  a 
little  record,  of  the  first  tingling  of  returning  life. 
Something  stirs  in  me,  and  I  will  not  resist  it ;  it 
may  be  read  by  some  one  that  comes  after  me,  by 
some  one  perhaps  who  feels  that  his  own  grief  is 
supreme  and  unique,  and  that  no  one  has  ever 
suffered  so  before.  He  may  learn  that  there  have 
been  others  in  the  dark  valley  before  him,  that  the 
mist  is  full  of  pilgrims  stumbling  on,  falling,  rising 
again,  falling  again,  lying  stupefied  in  a  silence 
which  is  neither  endurance  nor  patience. 

Maud  was  taken  from  me  first ;  she  went  with- 
out a  word  or  a  sigh.  She  was  better  that  day, 
she  declared,  than  she  had  felt  for  some  time  ;  she 
was  on  the  upward  grade.  She  walked  a  few 
hundred  yards  with  Maggie  and  myseif,  and  then 
she  went  back  ;  the  last  sight  I  had  of  her  alive 
was  when  she  stood  at  the  corner  and  waved  her 
hand  to  us  as  we  went  out  of  sight.  I  am  glad  I 
looked  round  and  saw  her  smile.  I  had  not  the 
smallest  or  faintest  premonition  of  what  was  com- 
ing ;  indeed,  I  w^as  lighter  of  mood  than  I  had 
been  for  some  time.  We  came  in  ;  we  were  told 
that  she  was  tired  and  had  gone  up  to  lie  down. 
As  she  did  not  come  down  to  tea,  I  went  up  and 


The  Shock  to  Maggie         325 

found  her  lying  on  her  bed,  her  head  upon  her 
hand — dead.  The  absolute  peace  and  stillness  of 
her  attitude  showed  us  that  she  had  herself  felt  no 
access  of  pain.  She  had  lain  down  to  rest,  and  she 
had  rested  indeed.  Even  at  my  worst  and  loneli- 
est, I  have  been  able  to  be  glad  that  it  was  even 
so.  If  I  could  know  that  I  should  die  thus  in  joy 
and  tranquillity,  is  would  be  a  great  load  off  my 
mind. 

But  the  grief,  the  shock  to  Maggie  was  too  much 
for  my  dear,  love-nurtured  child.  A  sort  of  awful 
and  desperate  strength  came  on  me  after  that ;  I 
felt  somehow,  day  by  day,  that  I  must  just  put 
away  my  own  grief  till  a  quiet  hour,  in  order  that 
I  might  sustain  and  guard  the  child  ;  but  her 
heart  was  broken,  I  think,  though  they  say  that 
no  one  dies  of  sorrow.  She  lay  long  ill — so  utterly 
frailj  so  appealing  in  her  grief,  that  I  could  think 
of  nothing  but  saving  her.  Was  it  a  kind  of  self- 
ishness that  needed  to  be  broken  down  in  me  ? 
Perhaps  it  was  !  Every  single  tendril  of  my 
heart  seemed  to  grow  round  the  child  and  clasp 
her  close ;  she  was  all  that  I  had  left,  and  in 
some  strange  way  she  seemed  to  be  all  that  I  had 
lost  too.  And  then  she  faded  out  of  life,  not 
knowing  that  she  was  fading,  but  simply  too  tired 


326  The  Altar  Fire 

to  live  ;  and  my  desire  alone  seemed  to  keep  her 
with  me.  Till  at  last,  seeing  her  weariness  and 
weakness,  I  let  my  desire  go  ;  I  yielded,  I  gave 
her  to  God,  and  He  took  her,  as  though  He  had 
waited  for  my  consent. 

And  now  that  I  am  alone,  I  will  say,  with  such 
honesty  as  I  can  muster,  that  I  have  no  touch  of 
self-pity,  no  rebellion.  It  is  all  too  deep  and  dark 
for  that.  I  am  not  strong  enough  even  to  wish  to 
die ;  I  have  no  wishes,  no  desires  at  all.  The 
three  seem  for  ever  about  me,  in  my  thoughts 
and  in  my  dreams.  When  Alec  died,  I  used  to 
wake  up  to  the  fact,  day  after  day,  with  a  trem- 
bling dismay.  Now  it  is  not  like  that.  I  can 
give  no  account  of  what  I  do.  The  smallest 
things  about  me  seem  to  take  up  my  mind.  I 
can  sit  for  an  hour  by  the  hearth,  neither  reading 
nor  thinking,  just  watching  the  flame  flicker  over 
the  coals,  or  the  red  heart  of  the  fire  eating  its 
way  upwards  and  outwards.  I  can  sit  on  a  sun- 
shiny morning  in  the  garden,  merely  watching 
with  a  strange  intentness  what  goes  on  about  me, 
the  uncrumbling  leaf,  the  snowdrop  pushing  from 
the  mould,  the  thrush  searching  the  lawn,  the 
robin  slipping  from  bough  to  bough,  the  shapes 
of  the  clouds,  the  dying  ray.     I  seem  to  have  no 


Alone  327 

motive  either  to  live  or  to  die.  I  retrace  in  mem- 
ory my  walks  with  Maggie,  I  can  see  her  floating 
hair,  and  how  she  leaned  to  me  ;  I  can  sit  as  I 
used  to  sit  reading,  by  Maud's  side,  and  see  her 
face  changing  as  the  book's  mood  changed,  her 
clear  eye,  her  strong  delicate  hands.  I  seem  as 
if  I  had  awaked  from  a  long  and  beautiful 
dream.  People  sometimes  come  and  see  me,  and 
I  can  see  the  pity  in  their  faces  and  voices  ;  I  can 
see  it  in  the  anxious  care  with  which  my  good 
servants  surround  me ;  but  I  feel  that  it  is  half 
disingenuous  in  me  to  accept  it,  because  I  need 
no  pity.  Perhaps  there  is  something  left  for 
me  to  do  in  the  world ;  there  seems  no  reason 
otherwise  why  I  should  linger  here. 

Mr. has  been  very  good  to  me  ;  I  have 

seen  him  almost  daily.  He  seems  the  only  per- 
son who  perfectly  understands.  He  has  hardly 
said  a  word  to  me  about  my  sorrow.  He  said 
once  that  he  should  not  speak  of  it ;  before,  he 
said,  I  was  like  a  boy  learning  a  lesson  with  the 
help  of  another  boy,  but  that  now  I  was  being 
taught  by  the  Master  Himself.  That  may  be  so  ; 
but  the  Master  has  a  very  scared  and  dull  pupil, 
alas,  who  cannot  even  discern  the  letters.  I  care 
nothing  whether  God  be  pleased  or  displeased  ;  I 


328  The  Altar  Fire 

bear  His  will,  without  either  pain  or  resistance. 
I  simply  feel  as  if  there  had  been  some  vast  and 
overwhelming  mistake  somewhere  ;  a  mistake  so 
incredible  and  inconceivable  that  nothing  else 
mattered  ;  as  if — I  do  not  speak  profanely — God 
Himself  were  appalled  at  what  He  had  done,  and 
dared  not  smite  further  one  whom  He  had  stunned 
into  silence  and  apathy. 

With  Mr.  I  talk  ;  he  talks  of  simple,  quiet 

things,  of  old  books  and  thoughts.  He  tells  me, 
sometimes,  when  I  am  too  weary  to  speak,  long, 
beautiful,  quiet  stories  of  his  younger  days,  and 
I  listen  like  a  child  to  his  grave  voice,  only  sorry 
when  it  comes  to  an  end.  So  the  days  pass,  and 
I  will  not  say  I  have  no  pleasure  in  them,  because 
I  have  won  back  a  sort  of  odd  childish  pleasure 
in  small  incidents,  sights,  and  sounds.  The  part 
of  me  that  can  feel  seems  to  have  been  simply 
cut  gently  away,  and  I  live  in  the  hour,  just  glad 
when  the  sun  is  out,  sorry  when  it  is  dull  and 
cheerless. 

I  read  the  other  day  one  of  my  old  books,  and 
I  could  not  believe  it  was  mine.  It  seemed  like 
the  voice  of  some  one  I  had  once  known  long 
ago,  in  a  golden  hour.  I  was  amused  and  sur- 
prised at  my  own  quickness  and  inventiveness,  at 


Waiting  329 

the  confidence  with  which  I  interpreted  every- 
thing so  glibly  and  easily,  I  cannot  interpret 
any  more,  and  I  do  not  seem  to  desire  to  do  so. 
I  seem  to  wait,  with  a  half-amused  smile,  to  see 
if  God  can  make  anything  out  of  the  strange 
tangle  of  things,  as  a  child  peers  in  within  a  scaf- 
folding, and  sees  nothing  but  a  forest  of  poles, 
little  rising  walls  of  chambers,  a  crane  swinging 
weights  to  and  fro.  What  can  ever  come,  he 
thinks,  out  of  such  strange  confusion,  such  fruit- 
less hurry  ? 

Well,  I  will  not  write  any  more ;  a  sense  of 
weariness  and  futility  comes  over  me.  I  will  go 
back  to  my  garden  to  see  what  I  can  see,  only 
dumbly  and  mutely  thankful  that  it  is  not  re- 
quired of  me  to  perform  any  dull  and  monotonous 
task,  which  would  interrupt  my  idle  dreams. 

February  8,  1891. 
I  tried  this  morning  to  look  through  some  of 
the  old  letters  and  papers  in  Maud's  cabinet. 
There  were  my  own  letters,  carefully  tied  up  with 
a  ribbon  ;  letters  from  her  mother  and  father  ; 
from  the  children  when  we  were  away  from  them. 
I  began  to  read,  and  was  seized  with  a  sharp, 
unreasoning  pain,  surprised  by  sudden  tears.     I 


330  The  Altar  Fire 

seemed  dumbly  to  resent  this,  and  I  put  them  all 
away  again.  Why  should  I  disturb  myself  to  no 
purpose  ?  ' '  There  shall  be  no  more  sorrow  nor 
crying,  for  the  former  things  are  passed  away  " — 
so  runs  the  old  verse,  and  I  had  almost  grown  to 
feel  like  that.  Why  distrust  it  ?  Yet  I  could  not 
forbear.  I  got  the  papers  out  again,  and  read 
late  into  the  night,  like  one  reading  an  old  and 
beautiful  story.  Suddenly  the  curtain  lifted,  and 
I  saw  myself  alone,  I  saw  what  I  had  lost.  The 
ineffectual  agony  I  endured,  crying  out  for  very 
loneliness  !  '  *  That  was  all  mine, ' '  said  the  melt- 
ing heart,  so  long  frozen  and  dumb.  Grief,  in 
waves  and  billows,  began  to  beat  upon  me  like 
breakers  on  a  rock-bound  shore.  A  strange  fever 
of  the  spirit  came  on  me,  scenes  and  figures  out 
of  the  years  floating  fiercely  and  boldly  past  me. 
Was  my  strength  and  life  sustained  for  this,  that 
I  should  just  sleep  awhile,  and  wake  to  fall  into 
the  pit  of  suffering,  far  deeper  than  before  ? 

If  they  could  but  come  back  to  me  for  a 
moment ;  if  I  could  feel  Maud's  cheek  by  mine, 
or  Maggie's  arms  around  my  neck  ;  if  they  could 
but  stand  by  me  smiling,  in  robes  of  light !  Yet 
as  in  a  vision  I  seem  to  see  them  leaning  from  a 
window,  in  a  blank  castle- wall  rising  from  a  misty 


A  Vision  331 

abyss,  scanning  a  little  stairway  that  rises  out  of 
the  clinging  fog,  built  up  through  the  rocks  and 
ending  in  a  postern  gate  in  the  castle- wall.  Upon 
that  stairway,  one  by  one  emerging  from  the  mist, 
seem  to  stagger  and  climb  the  figures  of  men, 
entering  in,  one  by  one,  and  the  three,  with  smiles 
and  arms  interlaced,  are  watching  eagerly.  Can- 
not I  climb  the  stair  ?  Perhaps  even  now  I  am 
close  below  them,  where  the  mist  hangs  damp  on 
rock  and  blade  ?  Cannot  I  set  myself  free  ?  No, 
I  could  not  look  them  in  the  face,  they  would  hide 
their  eyes  from  me,  if  I  came  in  hurried  flight,  in 
passionate  cowardice.  Not  so  must  I  come  be- 
fore them ,  if  indeed  they  wait  for  me. 

The  morning  was  coming  in  about  the  dewy 
garden,  the  birds  piping  faint  in  thicket  and 
bush,  when  I  stumbled  slowly,  dizzied  and  help- 
less, to  ray  bed.  Then  a  troubled  sleep  ;  and 
ah,  the  bitter  waking  ;  for  at  last  I  knew  what  I 
had  lost. 

February  lo,  1891. 

**  All  things  become  plain  to  us,"  said  the  good 

vicar,   pulling  on  his  gloves,   "when  we  once 

realise  that  God  is  love — Perfect  Love  !  "     He 

said  good-bye  ;   he  trudged  off  to  his  tea,  a  try- 


33^  The  Altar  Fire 

ing  visit  manfully  accomplished,  leaving  me 
alone. 

He  had  sate  with  me,  good,  kindly  man,  for 
twenty  minutes.  There  were  tears  in  his  eyes, 
and  I  valued  that  little  sign  of  human  fellowship 
more  than  all  the  commonplaces  he  courageously 
enunciated.  He  talked  in  a  soft,  low  tone,  as  if  I 
was  ill.  He  made  no  allusions  to  mundane  things  ; 
and  I  am  grateful  to  him  for  coming.  He  had 
dreaded  his  call,  I  am  sure,  and  he  had  done  it 
from  a  mixture  of  affection  and  duty,  both  good 
things. 

"  Perfect  Love,  yes — if  we  could  feel  that !  "  I 
sate  musing  in  my  chair. 

I  saw,  as  in  a  picture,  a  child  brought  up  in  a 
beautiful  and  stately  house  by  a  grave  strong 
man,  who  lavished  at  first  love  and  tenderness, 
ease  and  beauty,  on  the  child,  laughing  with 
him,  and  making  much  of  him  ;  all  of  which  the 
child  took  unconsciously,  unthinkingly,  knowing 
nothing  different ;  running  to  meet  his  guardian, 
glad  to  be  with  him,  sorry  to  leave  him. 

Then  I  saw  in  my  parable  that  one  day,  when 
the  child  played  in  the  garden,  as  he  had  often 
played  before,  he  noticed  a  little  green  alley,  with 
a  pleasant  arch  of  foliage,  that  he  had  never  seen 


A  Parable  333 

before,  leading  to  some  secluded  place.  The 
child  was  dimly  aware  that  there  were  parts  of 
the  garden  where  he  was  supposed  not  to  go  ;  he 
had  been  told  he  must  not  go  too  far  from  the 
house,  but  it  was  all  vague  and  indistinct  in  his 
mind  ;  he  had  never  been  shown  anything  pre- 
cisely, or  told  the  limits  of  his  wanderings.  So 
he  went  in  joy,  with  a  sense  of  a  sweet  mystery, 
down  the  alley,  and  presently  found  himself  in  a 
still  brighter  and  more  beautiful  garden,  full  of 
fruits  growing  on  the  ground  and  on  the  trees, 
which  he  plucked  and  ate.  There  was  a  building, 
like  a  pavilion,  at  the  end,  of  two  storeys  ;  and 
while  he  wandered  thither  with  his  hands  full  of 
fruits,  he  suddenly  saw  his  guardian  watching 
him,  with  a  look  he  had  never  seen  on  his  face  be- 
fore, from  the  upper  window  of  the  garden-house. 
His  first  impulse  was  to  run  to  him,  share  his  joy 
with  him,  and  ask  him  why  he  had  not  been 
shown  the  delicious  place  ;  but  the  fixed  and  in- 
scrutable look  on  his  guardian's  face,  neither 
smiling  nor  frowning,  the  stillness  of  his  attitude, 
first  chilled  the  child  and  then  dismayed  him  ; 
he  flung  the  fruits  on  the  ground  and  shivered, 
and  then  ran  out  of  the  garden.  In  the  evening, 
when  he  was  with  his  guardian,  he  found  him  as 


334  The  Altar  Fire 

kind  and  tender  as  ever.  But  his  guardian  said 
nothing  to  him  about  the  inner  garden  of  fruits, 
and  the  child  feared  to  ask  him. 

But  the  next  day  he  felt  as  though  the  fruits 
had  given  him  a  new  eagerness,  a  new  strength  ; 
he  hankered  after  them  long,  and  at  last  went 
down  the  green  path  again  ;  this  time  the  summer- 
house  seemed  empty.  So  he  ate  his  fill,  and  this 
he  did  for  many  days.  Then  one  day,  when  he 
was  bending  down  to  pluck  a  golden  fruit,  that 
lay  gem-like  on  the  ground  among  green  leaves, 
he  heard  a  sudden  step  behind  him,  and  turning, 
saw  his  guardian  draw  swiftly  near,  with  a  look 
of  anger  on  his  face  ;  the  next  instant  he  was 
struck  down,  again  and  again  ;  lifted  from  the 
ground  at  last,  as  in  a  passion  of  rage,  and  flung 
down  bleeding  on  the  earth  ;  and  then,  without  a 
word,  his  guardian  left  him  ;  at  first  he  lay  and 
moaned,  but  then  he  crawled  away,  and  back  to 
the  house.  And  there  he  found  the  old  nurse 
that  tended  him,  who  greeted  him  with  tears  and 
words  of  comfort,  and  cared  for  his  hurts.  And 
he  asked  her  the  reason  of  his  hard  usage,  but 
she  could  tell  him  nothing,  only  saying  that  it  was 
the  master's  will,  and  that  he  sometimes  did  thus, 
though  she  thought  he  was  merciful  at  heart. 


The  Child  and  the  Garden     335 

The  child  lay  sick  many  days,  his  guardian  still 
coming  to  him  and  sitting  with  him,  with  gentle 
talk  and  tender  oflSces,  till  the  scene  in  the  garden 
was  like  an  evil  dream  ;  but  as  his  guardian  spoke 
no  word  of  displeasure  to  the  child,  the  child  still 
feared  to  ask  him,  and  only  strove  to  forget  And 
then  at  last  he  was  well  enough  to  go  out  a  little  ; 
but  a  few  days  after — he  avoided  the  inner  garden 
now  out  of  a  sort  of  horror — he  was  sitting  in  the 
sun,  near  the  house,  feebly  trying  to  amuse  him- 
self with  one  of  his  old  games — how  poor  they 
seemed  after  the  fiiiits  of  the  inner  paradise,  how 
he  hankered  desirously  after  the  further  place, 
with  its  hot,  sweet,  fragrant  scents,  its  rich  juices  ! 
— when  again  his  guardian  came  upon  him  in  a 
sudden  wrath,  and  struck  him  many  times,  dash- 
ing him  down  to  the  ground  ;  and  again  he  crept 
home,  and  lay  long  ill,  and  again  his  guardian 
was  un  weary  ingly  kind  ;  but  now  a  sort  of  horror 
of  the  man  grew  up  in  the  mind  of  the  child,  and 
he  feared  that  his  strange  anger  might  break  out 
at  any  moment  in  a  storm  of  blows. 

And  at  last  he  was  well  again  ;  and  had  half 
forgotten,  in  the  constant  kindness,  and  even 
merriment,  of  his  guardian,  the  horror  of  the  two 
assaults.     He    was    out    and  about    again ;    he 


336  The  Altar  Fire 

still  shunned  the  paradise  of  fruits,  but  wearying 
of  the  accustomed  pleasaunce,  he  went  further  and 
passed  into  the  wood  ;  how  cool  and  mysterious 
it  was  among  the  great  branching  trees  !  the 
forest  led  him  onwards ;  now  the  sun  lay  softly 
upon  it,  and  a  stream  bickered  through  a  glade, 
and  now  the  path  lay  through  thickets,  which 
hid  the  further  woodland  from  view ;  and  now 
passing  out  into  a  more  open  space,  he  had  a 
thrill  of  joy  and  excitement ;  there  was  a  herd  of 
strange  living  creatures  grazing  there,  great  deer 
with  branching  horns  ;  they  moved  slowly  for- 
wards, cropping  the  grass,  and  the  child  was  lost  in 
wonder  at  the  sight.  Presently  one  of  them  stopped 
feeding,  began  to  sniff  the  air,  and  then  looking 
round,  espied  the  child,  and  began  slowly  to  ap- 
proach him.  The  child  had  no  terror  of  the  great 
dappled  stag,  and  held  out  his  hand  to  him, 
when  the  great  beast  suddenly  bent  his  head 
down,  and  was  upon  him  with  one  bound,  strik- 
ing him  with  his  horns,  lifting  him  up,  smiting 
him  with  his  pointed  hoofs.  Presently  the 
child,  in  his  terror  and  faintness,  became  aware 
that  the  beast  had  left  him,  and  he  began  to  drag 
himself,  all  bruised  as  he  was,  along  the  glade  ; 
then  he  suddenly  saw  his  guardian  approaching, 


The  Child  337 

and  cried  out  to  him,  holding  out  his  hands  for 
help  and  comfort — and  his  guardian  strode 
straight  up  to  him,  and,  with  the  same  fierce 
anger  in  his  face,  struck  at  him  again  and  again, 
and  spurned  him  with  his  feet.  And  then,  when 
he  left  him,  the  child  at  last,  with  accesses  of 
deadly  faintness  and  pain,  crept  back  home,  to 
be  again  tended  by  the  old  nurse,  who  wept  over 
him  ;  and  the  child  found  that  his  guardian  came 
to  visit  him,  as  kind  and  gentle  as  ever.  And  at 
last  one  day  when  he  sate  beside  the  child,  hold- 
ing his  hand,  stroking  his  hair,  and  telling  him 
an  old  tale  to  comfort  him,  the  child  summoned 
up  courage  to  ask  him  a  question  about  the  gar- 
den and  the  wood  ;  but  at  the  first  word  his 
guardian  dropped  his  hand,  and  left  him  without 
a  word. 

And  then  the  child  lay  and  mused  with  fierce 
and  rebellious  thoughts.  He  said  to  himself,  *  *  If 
my  guardian  had  told  me  where  I  might  not  go  ; 
if  he  had  said  to  me,  *  in  the  inner  garden  are 
unwholesome  fruits,  and  in  the  wood  are  savage 
beasts ;  and  though  I  am  strong  and  powerful, 
yet  I  have  not  strength  enough  to  root  up  the 
poisonous  plants  and  make  the  place  a  wilder- 
ness ;  and  I  cannot  put  a  fence  about  it,  or  a  fence 


338  The  Altar  Fire 

about  the  wood,  that  no  one  should  enter  ;  but  I 
warn  you  that  you  must  not  enter,  and  I  entreat 
you  for  the  love  I  bear  you  not  to  go  thither, ' ' 
then  the  child  thought  that  he  would  not  have 
made  question,  but  would  have  obeyed  him  wil- 
lingly, and  again  he  thought  that,  if  he  had  in- 
deed ventured  in,  and  had  eaten  of  the  evil  fruits 
and  been  wounded  by  the  savage  stag,  yet  if  his 
guardian  had  comforted  him,  and  prayed  him 
lovingly  not  to  enter  to  his  hurt,  that  then  he 
would  have  loved  his  guardian  more  abundantly 
and  carefully.  And  he  thought  too  that,  if  his 
guardian  had  ever  smitten  him  in  wrath,  and  had 
then  said  to  him  with  tears  that  it  had  grieved 
him  bitterly  to  hurt  him,  but  that  thus  and  thus 
only  could  he  learn  the  vileness  of  the  place  then 
he  would  have  not  only  forgiven  the  ill-usage,  but 
would  even  have  loved  to  endure  it  patiently. 
But  what  the  child  could  not  understand  was  that 
his  guardian  should  now  be  tender  and  gracious, 
and  at  another  time  hard  and  cruel,  explaining 
nothing  to  him.  And  thus  the  child  said  to  him- 
self, ' '  I  am  in  his  power,  and  he  must  do  his 
will  upon  me  ;  but  I  neither  trust  nor  love  him, 
for  I  cannot  see  the  reason  of  what  he  does  ; 
though  if  he  ^ould  but  tell  me  the  reason,  I 


The  Child  339 

could  obey  him  and  submit  to  him  joyfully." 
These  hard  thoughts  he  nourished  and  fed  upon  ; 
and  his  guardian  came  no  more  to  him  for  good  or 
for  evil  ;  and  the  child,  much  broken  by  his  hard 
usage  and  his  angry  thoughts,  crept  about  neg- 
lected and  spiritless,  with  nothing  but  fear  and 
dismay  in  his  heart. 

So  the  imagination  shaped  itself  in  my  mind,  a 
parable  of  the  sad,  strange  life  of  man. 

' '  Perfect  I,ove  !  "  If  it  were  indeed  that  ?  Yet 
God  does  many  things  to  His  frail  children, 
which  if  a  man  did,  I  could  not  believe  him  to  be 
loving;  though  if  He  would  but  give  us  the 
assurance  that  it  was  all  leading  us  to  happiness, 
we  could  endure  His  fiercest  stroke,  His  bitterest 
decree.  But  He  smites  us,  and  departs;  He 
turns  away  in  a  rage,  because  we  have  broken  a 
law  that  we  knew  not  of.  And  again,  when  we 
seem  most  tranquil  and  blest,  most  inclined  to 
trust  Him  utterly,  He  smites  us  down  again  with- 
out a  word.  I  hope,  I  yearn  to  see  that  it  all 
comes  from  some  great  and  perfect  will,  a  will 
with  qualities  of  which  what  we  know  as  mercy, 
justice,  and  love  are  but  faint  shadows — but  that 
is  hidden  from  me.  We  cannot  escape,  we  must 
bear  what  God  lays  upon  us.      We  may  fling 


340  The  Altar  Fire 

ourselves  into  bitter  and  dark  rebellion  ;  still  He 
spares  us  or  strikes  us,  gives  us  sorrow  or  delight. 
My  one  hope  is  to  co-operate  with  Him,  to  accept 
the  chastening  joyfully  and  courageously.  Then 
He  takes  from  me  joy,  and  courage  alike,  till  I 
know  not  whom  I  serve,  a  Father  or  a  tyrant. 
Can  it  indeed  help  us  to  doubt  whether  He  be 
tyrant  or  no  ?  Again  I  know  not,  and  again  I 
sicken  in  fruitless  despair,  like  one  caught  in  a 
great  labyrinth  of  crags  and  precipices. 

February  14,  1891. 
Then  the  Christian  teacher  says:  *'God  has 
given  you  a  will,  an  independent  will  to  act  and 
choose;  put  it  in  unison  with  His  will."  Alas, 
I  know  not  how  much  of  my  seeming  liberty  is 
His  or  mine.  He  seems  to  make  me  able  to 
exert  my  will  in  some  directions,  able  to  make  it 
effective ;  and  yet  in  other  matters,  even  though 
I  see  that  a  course  is  holy  and  beautiful,  I  have 
no  power  to  follow  it  at  all.  I  see  men  some 
more,  some  less  hampered  than  myself.  Some 
seem  to  have  no  desire  for  good,  no  dim  percep- 
tion of  it.  The  outcast  child,  brought  up  cruelly 
and  foully,  with  vile  inheritances,  he  is  not  free, 
as  I  use  the  word  ;    sometimes,  by  some  inner 


The  Failing  Will  341 

purity  and  strength,  he  struggles  upwards  ;  most 
often  he  is  engulfed ;  yet  it  is  all  a  free  gift,  to 
me  much,  to  another  little,  to  some  nothing  at 
all.  With  all  my  heart  do  I  wish  my  will  to  be 
in  harmony  with  His.  I  yield  it  up  utterly  to 
Him.  I  have  no  strength  or  force,  and  He  with- 
holds them  from  me.  I  do  not  blame,  I  only  ask 
to  understand  ;  He  has  given  me  understanding, 
and  has  put  in  my  heart  a  high  dream  of  justice 
and  love ;  why  will  He  not  show  me  that  He 
satisfies  the  dream  ?  I  say  with  the  old  Psalmist, 
"lyO,  I  come,"  but  He  comes  not  forth  to  meet 
me  ;  He  does  not  even  seem  to  discern  me  when 
I  am  yet  a  long  way  off,  as  the  father  in  the 
parable  discerned  his  erring  son. 

Then  the  Christian  teacher  says  to  me  that  all 
is  revealed  in  Christ ;  that  He  reconciles,  not  an 
angry  God  to  a  wilful  world,  but  a  grieved  and 
outraged  world  to  a  God  who  cannot  show  them 
He  is  love. 

Yet  Christ  said  that  God  was  all-merciful  and 
all-loving,  and  that  He  ordered  the  very  falling 
of  a  single  hair  of  our  heads.  But  if  God  ordered 
that,  then  He  did  not  leave  unordered  the 
qualities  of  our  hearts  and  wills,  and  our  very- 
sins  are  of  His  devising. 


342  The  Altar  Fire 

No,  it  is  all  dark  and  desperate ;  I  do  not 
know,  I  cannot  know  ;  I  shall  stumble  to  my  end 
in  ignorance ;  sometimes  glad  when  a  gleam  of 
sunshine  falls  on  my  wearied  limbs,  sometimes 
wrapping  my  garments  around  me  in  cold  and 
drenching  rain.  I  am  in  the  hand  of  God;  I 
know  that ;  and  I  hope  that  I  may  dare  to  trust 
Him  ;  but  my  confidence  is  shaken  as  He  passes 
over  me,  as  the  reed  in  the  river  shakes  in  the 
wind. 

February  i8,  1891. 

A  Still  February  day,  with  a  warm,  steady  sun, 
which  stole  in  and  caressed  me,  enveloping  me  in 
light  and  warmth,  as  I  sate  reading  this  morning. 
If  I  could  be  ashamed  of  anything,  I  should  be 
ashamed  of  the  fact  that  my  body  has  all  day 
long  surprised  me  by  a  sort  of  indolent  content- 
ment, repeating  over  and  over  that  it  is  glad  to  be 
alive.  The  mind  and  soul  crave  for  death  and 
silence.  Yet  all  the  while  my  faithful  and  useful 
friend,  the  body,  seems  to  croon  a  low  song  of 
delight.  That  is  the  worst  of  it,  that  I  seem 
built  for  many  years  of  life.  Shall  I  learn  to 
forget  ? 

I  walked  long  and  far  among  the  fields,  in  the 


The  Lambing-Fold  343 

fresh,  sun-warmed  air.  Ah !  the  sweet  world  ! 
Everything  was  at  its  baiest  and  austerest — the 
grass  thin  in  the  pastures,  the  copses  leafless. 
But  such  a  sense  of  hidden  life  everywhere  !  I 
stood  long  beside  the  gate  to  watch  the  new-born 
lambs,  whose  cries  thrilled  plaintively  on  the  air, 
like  the  notes  of  a  violin.  I^ittle  black-faced 
grey  creatures,  on  their  high,  stilt-like  legs — a 
week  or  two  old,  and  yet  able  to  walk,  to  gambol, 
to  rejoice,  in  their  way,  to  reflect.  The  bleating 
mothers  moved  about,  divided  between  a  deep 
desire  to  eat,  and  the  anxious  care  of  their  j^oung- 
lings.  One  of  them  stood  over  her  sleeping  lamb, 
stamping  her  feet,  to  dismay  me,  no  doubt,  while 
the  little  creature  lay  like  a  folded  door-mat  on 
the  pasture.  Another  brutally  repelled  the  ad- 
vances of  a  strange  lamb,  butting  it  over  whenever 
it  drew  near  ;  another  chewed  the  cud,  while  its 
lamb  sucked,  its  eyes  half  closed  in  contented  joy, 
just  turning  from  time  to  time  to  snifi"  at  the  little 
creature  pressed  close  to  its  side.  I  felt  as  if  I 
had  never  seen  the  sight  before,  this  wonderful 
and  amazing  drama  of  life,  beginning  again  year 
after  year,  the  same,  yet  not  the  same. 

The  old  shepherd  came  out  with  his  crook, 
said  a  few  words  to  me,  and  moved  off,  the  ewes 


344  The  Altar  Fire 

following  him,  the  lambs  skipping  behind.  **  He 
shall  feed  me  in  a  green  pasture,  and  lead  me 
forth  beside  the  waters  of  comfort."  How  per- 
fectly beautiful  and  tender  the  image,  a  thing 
seen  how  many  hundred  years  ago  on  the  hills  of 
Bethlehem,  and  touching  the  old  heart  just  as  it 
touches  me  to-day  ! 

And  yet,  alas,  to  me  to-day  the  image  seems  to 
miss  the  one  thing  needful ;  how  all  the  images 
of  guide  and  guardian  and  shepherd  fail  when 
applied  to  God  !  For  here  the  shepherd  is  but  a 
little  wiser,  a  little  stronger  than  his  flock.  He 
sees  their  difficulties,  he  feels  them  himself.  But 
with  God,  He  is  at  once  the  Guide,  and  the 
Creator  of  the  very  dangers  past  which  He  would 
lead  us.  If  we  felt  that  God  Himself  were  dis- 
mayed and  sad  in  the  presence  of  evils  that  He 
could  not  touch  or  remedy,  we  should  turn  to  Him 
to  help  us  as  He  best  could.  But  while  we  feel 
that  the  very  perplexities  and  sufferings  come 
from  His  hand,  how  can  we  sincerely  ask  Him  to 
guard  us  from  things  which  He  originates,  or  at 
least  permits  ?  Why  should  they  be  there  at  all, 
if  His  concern  is  to  help  us  past  them ;  or  how 
can  we  think  that  He  will  lead  us  past  them, 
when  they  are  part  of  His  wise  and  awful  design  ? 


A  Far-off  Hope  345 

And  thus  one  plunges  again  into  the  darkness. 
Can  it  indeed  be  that  God,  if  He  be  all-embrac- 
ing, all-loving,  all-powerful,  can  create  or  allow 
to  arise  within  Himself  something  that  is  not 
Himself,  alien  to  Him,  hostile  to  Him?  How 
can  we  believe  in  Him  and  trust  Him,  if  this 
indeed  be  so  ? 

And  yet,  looking  upon  that  little  flock  to-day, 
I  did  indeed  feel  the  presence  of  a  kind  and 
fatherly  heart,  of  something  that  grieved  for  my 
pain,  and  that  laid  a  hand  upon  my  shoulder, 
saying,  "  Son,  endure  for  a  little ;  be  not  so 
disquieted!** 

March  8,  1891. 
Something — far-off,  faint,  joyful — cried  out  sud- 
denly in  the  depths  of  my  spirit  to-day.  I  felt — 
lean  but  express  it  by  images,  for  it  was  too 
intangible  for  direct  utterance — as  a  woman  feels 
when  her  child's  life  quickens  within  her  ;  as 
a  traveller's  heart  leaps  up  when,  lost  among 
interminable  hills,  he  is  hailed  by  a  friendly  voice ; 
as  the  river-water,  thrust  up  into  creeks  and 
estuaries  by  the  incoming  tide,  is  suddenly  freed 
by  the  ebb  from  that  stealthy  pressure,  and  flows 
gladly  downwards  ;   as  the  dark  garden-ground 


346  The  Altar  Fire 

may  feel  when  the  frozen  soil  melts  under  the 
warm  winds  of  spring,  and  the  flower- roots  begin 
to  swell  and  shoot. 

Some  such  thrill  it  was  that  moved  in  the 
silence  of  the  soul,  showing  that  the  darkness 
was  alive. 

It  came  upon  me  as  I  walked  among  the  soft 
airs  to-day.  It  was  no  bodily  lightness  that 
moved  me,  for  I  was  unstrung,  listless,  indolent ; 
but  it  was  a  sense  that  it  was  good  to  live, 
lonely  and  crushed  as  I  was  ;  that  there  was 
something  waiting  for  me  which  deserved  to  be 
approached  with  a  patient  expectation — that  life 
was  enriched,  rather  than  made  desolate  by  my 
grief  and  losses  ;  that  I  had  treasure  laid  up  in 
heaven.  It  came  upon  me  as  a  fancy,  but  it 
was  something  better  than  that,  that  one  or 
other  of  my  dear  ones  had  perhaps  awaked 
in  the  other  world,  and  had  sent  out  a  thought 
in  search  of  me.  I  had  often  thought  that  if, 
when  we  are  bom  into  this  world  of  ours,  our 
first  years  are  so  dumb  and  unperceptivCj  it 
might  be  even  so  in  the  world  beyond  ;  that  we 
are  there  allowed  to  rest  a  little,  to  sleep ,  and 
that  has  seemed  to  be  perhaps  the  explanation 
why,    in   those   first   days  of   grief,  when    the 


A  Far-off  Hope  347 

mourner  aches  to  have  some  communication  with 
the  vanished  soul,  and  when  a  soul  that  has 
passed  the  bounds  of  life  would  be  desiring 
too,  one  would  think,  to  send  some  message 
back,  why,  I  say,  there  is  no  voice  nor  hint 
nor  sign.  Perhaps  the  reason  why  our  grief 
loses  its  sting  after  a  season  is  that  the  soul  we 
have  loved  does  contrive  to  send  some  healing 
influence  into  the  desolate  heart. 

I  know  not ;  but  as  I  stood  upon  the  hill-top 
to-day  at  evening,  the  setting  sun  gilding  the 
cloud-edges,  and  touching  the  horizon  with  a 
delicate  misty  azure,  my  spirit  did  indeed  awake 
with  a  smile,  and  a  murmured   word   of  hope. 

If  I,  who  have  lost  everything  that  can  en- 
rich and  gladden  life,  can  yet  feel  that  inaliena- 
ble residue  of  hope,  which  just  turns  the  bal- 
ance on  the  side  of  desiring  still  to  live,  it  must 
be  that  life  has  something  yet  in  store  for  me 
— I  do  not  hope  for  love,  I  do  not  desire  the 
old  gift  of  expression  again  ;  but  there  is  some- 
thing to  learn,  to  apprehend,  to  understand.  I 
have  learnt,  I  think,  not  to  grasp  at  any- 
thing, not  to  clasp  anything  close  to  my  heart ; 
the  dream  of  possession  has  fled  from  me ;  it 
will    be    enough    if,  as   I    learn    the    lesson,  I 


348  The  Altar  Fire 

can  ease  a  few  burdens  and  help  frail  feet  along 
the  road.  Duty,  pleasure,  work — strange  names 
which  we  give  to  life,  perversely  separating  the 
strands  of  the  woven  thread,  they  hold  no 
meaning  for  me  now — I  do  not  expect  to  be 
free  from  suffering  or  from  grief ;  but  I  will  no 
more  distinguish  them  from  other  experiences 
saying,  this  is  joyful  and  I  will  take  all  I  can,  or 
this  is  sad,  and  I  will  fly  from  it.  I  will  take  life 
whole,  not  divided  into  pieces  and  choose.  My 
grief  shall  be  like  a  silent  chapel,  lit  with  holy 
light,  into  which  I  shall  often  enter,  and  bend, 
not  to  frame  mechanical  prayers,  but  to  submit 
myself  to  the  still  influence  of  the  shrine.  It 
is  all  my  own  now,  a  place  into  which  no  other 
curious  eye  can  penetrate,  a  guarded  sanctuary. 
My  sorrow  seems  to  have  plucked  me  with  a 
strong  hand  out  of  the  whirling  drift  of  cares, 
anxieties,  ambitions,  hopes  ;  and  I  see  now  that 
I  could  not  have  rescued  myself ;  that  I  should 
have  gone  on  battling  with  the  current,  catching 
at  the  river  wrack,  in  the  hopes  of  saving  some- 
thing from  the  stream.  Now  I  am  face  to  face  with 
God ;  He  saves  me  from  myself.  He  strips  my 
ragged  vesture  from  me  and  I  stand  naked  as  He 
made  me,  unashamed,  nestling  close  to  His  heart. 


Experience  349 

April  3,  1 891. 
A  truth  which  has  come  home  to  me  of  late 
with  a  growing  intensity  is  that  we  are  sent  into 
the  world  for  the  sake  of  experience,  not  neces- 
sarily for  the  sake  of  immediate  happiness.  I  feel 
that  the  mistake  we  most  of  us  make  is  in  reach- 
ing out  after  a  sense  of  satisfaction  ;  and  even  if 
we  learn  to  do  without  that,  we  find  it  very  diffi- 
cult to  do  without  the  sense  of  conscious  growth. 
I  say  again  that  what  we  need  and  profit  by  is  ex- 
perience, and  sometimes  that  comes  by  suffering, 
helpless,  dreary,  apparently  meaningless  suffer- 
ing. Yet  when  pain  subsides,  do  we  ever,  does 
any  one  ever  wish  the  suffering  had  not  befallen 
us  ?  I  think  not.  We  feel  better,  stronger,  more 
pure,  more  serene  for  it.  Sometimes  we  get  ex- 
perience by  living  what  seems  to  be  an  un- 
congenial life.  One  cannot  solve  the  problem  of 
happiness  by  simply  trying  to  turn  out  of  one's 
life  whatever  is  uncongenial.  lyife  cannot  be 
made  into  an  Earthly  Paradise,  and  it  injures 
one's  soul  even  to  try.  What  we  can  turn  out  of 
our  lives  are  the  unfruitful,  wasteful,  conven- 
tional things  ;  and  one  can  follow  what  seems 
the  true  life,  though  one  may  mistake  even  that 
sometimes.      One    of  the    commonest    mistakes 


350  The  Altar  Fire 

nowadays  is  that  so  many  people  are  haunted 
with  a  vague  sense  that  they  ought  to  do  good,  as 
they  say.  The  best  that  most  people  can  do  is  to 
perform  thei^r  work  and  their  obvious  duties  well 
and  conscientiously. 

If  we  realise  that  experience  is  what  we  need, 
and  not  necessarily  happiness  or  contentment,  the 
whole  value  of  life  is  altered.  We  see  then  that 
we  can  get  as  much  or  even  more  out  of  the  futile 
hour  when  we  are  held  back  from  our  chosen  de- 
lightful work,  even  out  of  the  dreary  or  terrified 
hour,  when  the  sense  of  some  irrevocable  neglect, 
some  base  surrender  that  has  marred  our  life, 
sinks  burning  into  the  soul,  as  a  hot  ember  sinks 
smoking  into  a  carpet.  Those  are  the  hours  of 
life  when  we  move  and  climb  ;  not  the  hours 
when  we  work,  and  eat,  and  laugh,  and  chat,  and 
dine  out  with  a  sense  of  well-merited  content. 

The  value  of  life  is  not  to  be  measured  by 
length  of  days  or  success  or  tranquillity,  but  by 
the  quality  of  our  experience,  and  the  degree  in 
which  we  have  profited  by  it.  In  the  light  of 
such  a  truth  as  this,  art  seems  to  fade  away  as 
just  a  pleasant  amusement  contrived  by  leisurely 
men  for  leisurely  men. 

Then,  further,  one  grows  to  feel  that  such  easy 


Experience  35  ^ 

happiness  as  comes  to  us  may  be  little  more  than 
the  sweetening  of  the  bitter  medicine,  just  enough 
to  give  us  courage  and  heart  to  live  on  ;  that 
applies,  of  course,  only  to  the  commoner  sorts  of 
happiness,  when  one  is  busy  and  merry  and  self- 
satisfied.  Some  sorts  of  happiness,  such  as  the 
best  kind  of  affection,  are  parts  of  the  larger  ex- 
perience. 

Then,  if  we  take  hold  of  such  experience  in  the 
right  way,  welcoming  it  as  far  as  possible,  not 
resisting  it  or  trying  to  beguile  it  or  forget  it,  we 
can  get  to  the  end  of  our  probation  quicker  ;  if, 
that  is,  we  let  the  truth  bum  into  us,  instead  of 
timidly  shrinking  away  from  it. 

This  seems  to  me  the  essence  of  true  religion  ; 
the  people  who  cling  very  close  to  particular 
creeds  and  particular  beliefs  seem  to  me  to  lose 
robustness  ;  it  is  like  trying  to  go  to  heaven  in  a 
bath-chair  !  It  retards  rather  than  hastens  the 
apprehension  of  truth.  Here  lies,  to  my  mind, 
the  unreality  of  mystical  books  of  devotion  and 
piety,  where  one  is  instructed  to  practise  a  servile 
sort  of  abasement,  and  to  beg  forgiveness  for  all 
one's  noblest  efforts  and  aspirations.  Neither  can 
I  believe  that  the  mystical  absorption,  inculcated 
by  such   books,  in  the  human   personality,  the 


352  The  Altar  Fire 

human  sufiferings  of  Christ,  is  wholesome,  or 
natural,  or  even  Christian.  I  cannot  imagine 
that  Christ  Himself  ever  recommended  such  a 
frame  of  mind  for  an  instant.  What  we  want  is  a 
much  simpler  sort  of  Christianity.  If  a  man  had 
gone  to  Christ  and  expressed  the  desire  to  follow 
Him,  Christ,  I  believe,  would  have  wanted  to 
know  whether  he  loved  others,  whether  he  hated 
sin,  whether  he  trusted  God.  He  would  not 
have  asked  him  to  recite  the  articles  of  his  belief, 
and  still  less  have  suggested  a  mystical  and 
emotional  sort  of  passion  for  His  own  Person. 
At  least  I  cannot  believe  it,  and  1  see  noth- 
ing in  the  Gospels  which  would  lead  me  to 
believe  it. 

In  any  case  this  belief  in  our  experience  being 
sent  us  for  our  far-off  ultimate  benefit  has  helped 
me  greatly  of  late,  and  will,  I  am  sure,  help  me 
still  more.  I  do  not  practise  it  as  I  should,  but 
I  believe  with  all  my  heart  that  the  truth  lies 
there. 

After  all,  the  truth  is  there ;  it  matters  little 
that  we  should  know  it ;  it  is  just  so  and  not 
otherwise,  and  what  we  believe  or  do  not  believe 
about  it,  will  not  alter  it ;  and  that  is  comfort 
too. 


Limitations  353 

April  2^,  1891. 

After  I  had  gone  up-stairs  to  bed  last  night,  I 
found  I  had  left  a  book  downstairs  which  I  was 
reading,  and  I  went  down  again  to  recover  it. 
I  could  not  find  any  matches,  and  had  some 
difficulty  in  getting  hold  of  the  book ;  it 
is  humiliating  to  think  how  much  depends  on 
sight. 

A  whimsical  idea  struck  me.  Imagine  a  crea- 
ture, highly  intellectual,  but  without  the  power 
of  sight,  brought  up  in  darkness,  receiving  im- 
pressions solely  by  hearing  and  touch.  Suppose 
him  introduced  into  a  room  such  as  mine,  and  en- 
deavoring to  form  an  impression  of  the  kind  of 
creature  who  inhabited  it.  Chairs,  tables,  even 
a  musical  instrument  he  could  interpret ;  but 
what  would  he  make  of  a  writing-table  and  its 
apparatus  ?  How  would  he  guess  at  the  use  of 
a  picture  ?  Strangest  of  all,  what  would  he  think 
of  books  ?  He  would  find  in  my  room  hundreds 
of  curious  oblong  objects,  opening  with  a  sort 
of  hinge,  and  containing  a  series  of  lamincB  of 
paper,  which  he  would  discern  by  his  delicacy  of 
touch  to  be  oddly  and  obscurely  dinted.  Yet  he 
would  probably  never  be  able  to  frame  a  guess 

that  such  objects  could  be  used  for  the  communi- 

23 


354  The  Altar  Fire 

cation  of  intellectual  ideas.     What  would  he  sup- 
pose them  to  be  ? 

The  thought  expanded  before  me.  What  if 
we  ourselves,  in  this  world  of  ours,  which  seems 
to  us  so  complete,  may  really  be  creatures  lacking 
some  further  sense,  which  would  make  all  our 
difiEiculties  plain  ?  We  knock  up  against  all  sorts 
of  unintelligible  and  inexplicable  things,  injustice, 
disease,  pain,  evil,  of  which  we  cannot  divine  the 
meaning  or  the  use.  Yet  they  are  undoubtedly 
there  !  Perhaps  it  is  only  that  we  cannot  dis- 
cern the  simplicity  and  the  completeness  of  the 
heavenly  house  of  which  they  are  the  furniture. 
Fanciful,  of  course ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think 
not  wholly  fanciful. 

May  lo,  1891. 

The  question  is  this  :  Is  there  a  kind  of  peace, 
of  tranquillity,  attainable  in  this  world,  which  is 
proof  against  all  calamities,  sufferings,  sorrows, 
losses,  doubts?  Is  it  attainable  for  one  like 
myself,  who  is  sensitive,  apprehensive,  highly 
strung,  at  once  confident  and  timid,  alive  to  im- 
pressions, liable  to  swift  changes  of  mood  ?  Or 
is  it  a  mere  matter  of  mental,  moral,  and  physical 
health,  depending  on  some  balance  of  qualities, 


**^4|^^^  The  Peace  of  God  355 


which  may  or  may  not  belong  to  a  man,  a  bal- 
ance which  hundreds  cannot  attain  to  ? 

By  this  peace,  I  do  not  mean  a  chilly  indif- 
ference, or  a  stoical  fortitude.  I  do  not  mean 
the  religious  peace,  such  as  I  see  in  some  people, 
which  consists  in  holding  as  a  certainty  a  scheme 
of  things  which  I  believe  to  be  either  untrue  or 
uncertain — and  about  which,  at  all  events,  no 
certainty  is  logically  and  rationally  possible. 

The  peace  I  mean  is  a  frame  of  mind  which  a 
man  would  have,  who  loved  passionately,  who 
suffered  acutely,  who  desired  intensely,  who  feared 
greatly  ;  and  yet  for  whom,  behind  love  and  pain, 
desire  and  fear,  there  existed  a  sort  of  inner  cita- 
del, in  which  his  soul  was  entrenched  and  im- 
pregnable. 

Such  a  security  could  not  be  a  wholly  rational 
thing,  because  reason  cannot  solve  the  enigmas 
with  which  we  are  confronted  ;  but  it  must  not 
be  an  irrational  institution  either,  because  then  it 
would  be  unattainable  by  a  man  of  high  intel- 
lectual gifts  ;  and  the  peace  that  I  speak  of  ought 
to  be  consistent  with  any  and  every  constitution 
— physical,  moral,  mental.  It  must  be  consistent 
with  physical  weakness,  with  a  liability  to  strong 
temptations,  with  an  incisive  and  penetrating  in- 


356  The  Altar  Fire 

tellectual  quality  ;  its  essence  would  be  a  sort  of 
vital  faith,  a  unity  of  the  individual  heart  with 
the  heart  of  the  world.  It  would  rise  like  a  rock 
above  the  sea,  like  a  lighthouse,  where  a  guarded 
flame  would  burn  high  and  steady,  however 
loudly  the  surges  thundered  below,  upon  the  reefs, 
however  fiercely  the  spray  was  dashed  against 
the  glasses  of  the  casements. 

If  it  is  attainable,  then  it  is  worth  while  to  do 
and  to  suffer  anything  to  attain  it  ;  if  it  is  not  at- 
tainable, then  the  best  thing  is  simply  to  be  as 
insensible  as  possible,  not  to  love,  not  to  admire, 
not  to  desire  ;  for  all  these  emotions  are  channels 
along  which  the  bitter  streams  of  suffering  can 
flow. 

Prudence  bids  one  close  these  channels  ;  mean- 
while a  fainter  and  remoter  voice,  with  sweet  and 
thrilling  accents,  seems  to  cry  to  one  not  to  be 
afraid,  urges  one  to  fling  open  every  avenue 
by  which  impassioned  experiences,  uplifting 
thoughts,  noble  hopes,  unselfish  desires,  may 
flow  into  the  soul. 

This  peace  I  have  seen,  or  dream  that  I  have 
seen,  in  the  faces  and  voices  of  certain  gracious 
spirits  whom  I  have  known.  It  seemed  to 
consist   in   an   unbounded    natural   gratitude,  a 


The  Track  357 

sweet  simplicity,  a  childlike  affectionateness,  that 
recognised  in  suffering  the  joy  of  which  it  was 
the  shadow,  and  in  desperate  catastrophes  the 
hope  that  lay  behind  them. 

Such  a  peace  must  not  be  a  surrender  of  any- 
thing, a  feeble  acquiescence  ;  it  must  be  a  strong 
and  eager  energy,  a  thirst  for  experience,  a  large 
tolerance,  a  desire  to  be  convinced,  a  resolute 
patience. 

It  is  this  and  no  less  that  I  ask  of  God. 

June  6,  1 89 1. 
I  had  a  beautiful  walk  to-day.  I  went  a  short 
way  by  train,  and  descending  at  a  wayside 
station,  found  a  little  field-path,  that  led  me  past 
an  old,  high-gabled,  mullioned  farmhouse,  with 
all  the  pleasant  litter  of  country  life  about  it.  Then 
I  passed  along  some  low-lying  meadows,  deep  in 
grass,  where  the  birds  sang  sweetly,  muffled 
in  leaves.  The  fields  there  were  all  full  of  orchids, 
purple  as  wine,  and  the  gold  of  buttercups  floated 
on  the  top  of  the  rich  meadow-grass.  Then  I 
passed  into  a  wood,  and  for  a  long  time  I  walked 
in  the  green  gloom  of  copses,  in  a  forest  stillness, 
only  the  tall  trees  rustling  softly  overhead,  with 
doves  cooing  deep  in  the  wood.     Only  once  I 


358  The  Altar  Fire 

passed  a  house,  a  little  cottage  of  grey  stone,  in 
a  clearing,  with  an  air  of  settled  peace  about  it, 
that  reminded  me  of  an  old  sweet  book  that  I 
used  to  read  as  a  child,  Phantasies ,  full  of 
the  mysterious  romance  of  deep  forests  and 
haunted  glades.  I  was  overshadowed  that  after- 
noon with  a  sense  of  the  ineffectiveness,  the  loneli- 
ness of  my  life,  walking  in  a  vain  shadow  ;  but 
it  melted  out  of  my  mind  in  the  delicate  beauty 
of  the  woodland,  with  its  wild  fragrances  and 
cool  airs,  as  when  one  chafes  one's  frozen  hands 
before  a  leaping  flame.  They  told  me,  those 
whispering  groves,  of  the  patient  and  tender  love 
of  the  Father,  and  I  drew  very  near  His  inmost 
heart  in  that  gentle  hour.  The  secret  was  to 
bear,  to  endure,  not  stoically  nor  stolidly,  but 
with  a  quiet  inclination  of  the  will  to  sorrow  and 
pain,  that  were  not  so  bitter  after  all,  when  one 
abode  faithfully  in  them.  I  became  aware  as  I 
walked,  that  my  heart  was  with  the  future  after 
all.  The  beautiful  dead  past,  I  could  be  grateful 
for  it,  and  not  desire  that  it  were  mine  again.  I 
felt  as  a  man  might  feel  who  is  making  his  way 
across  a  wide  moor.  "  Surely,"  he  says  to  him- 
self, '*  the  way  lies  here  ;  this  ridge,  that  dingle 
mark  the  track  •  it  lies  there  by  the  rushy  pool, 


The  Track  359 

and  shows  greener  among  the  heather."  So  he 
says,  persuading  himself  in  vain  that  he  has 
found  the  way  ;  but  at  last  the  track,  plain  and 
unmistakable,  lies  before  him,  and  he  loses  no 
more  time  in  imaginings,  but  goes  straight  for- 
ward. It  was  my  sorrow,  after  all,  that  had 
shown  me  that  I  was  in  the  true  path.  I  had  tried, 
in  the  old  days,  to  fancy  that  I  was  homeward 
bound  ;  sometimes  it  was  in  the  love  of  my  dear 
ones,  sometimes  in  the  joy  of  art,  sometimes  in 
my  chosen  work  ;  and  yet  I  knew  in  my  heart  all 
the  time  that  I  was  but  a  leisurely  wanderer  ;  but 
now  at  last  the  destined  road  was  clear  ;  I  was 
no  longer  astray  ;  I  was  no  longer  inventing 
duties  and  acts  for  myself,  but  I  had  in  very  truth 
a  note  of  the  way.  It  was  not  the  path  I  should 
have  chosen  in  my  blindness  and  easiness.  But 
there  could  no  longer  be  any  doubt  about  it. 
How  the  false  ambitions,  the  comfortable  schemes, 
the  trivial  hopes  melted  away  for  me  in  that 
serene  certainty  !  What  I  had  pursued  before 
was  the  phantom  of  delight ;  and  though  I  still 
desired  delight,  with  all  the  passion  of  my  poor 
frail  nature,  yet  I  saw  that  not  thus  could  the  real 
joy  of  God  be  won.  It  was  no  longer  a  question 
of  hope  and  disappointment,  of  sin  and  punish- 


360  The  Altar  Fire 

ment.  It  was  something  truer  and  stronger  than 
that.  The  sin  and  the  suffering  alike  had  been 
the  Will  of  God  for  me.  I  had  never  desired  evil, 
though  I  had  often  fallen  into  it ;  but  there  was 
never  a  moment,  when,  if  I  could,  I  would  not 
have  been  pure  and  unselfish  and  strong.  That 
was  a  blessed  hour  for  me,  when,  in  place  of  the 
old  luxurious  delight,  there  came,  flooding  my 
heart,  an  intense  and  passionate  desire  that  I 
might  accept  with  a  loving  confidence  whatever 
God  might  send  ;  my  wearied  body,  my  tired, 
anxious  mind,  were  but  a  slender  veil,  rent  and 
ruinous,  that  hung  between  God  and  my  soul, 
through  which  I  could  discern  the  glory  of  His 
love. 

,  June  20,  1 891. 

It  was  on  a  warm,  bright  summer  afternoon 
that  I  woke  to  the  sense  both  of  what  I  had  lost 
and  what  I  had  gained.  I  had  wandered  out  into 
the  country,  for  in  those  days  I  had  a  great  de- 
sire to  be  alone.  I  stood  long  beside  a  stile  in  the 
pastures,  a  little  village  below  me,  and  the  gables 
and  chimneys  of  an  old  farmhouse  stood  up  over 
wide  fields  of  young  waving  wheat.  A  cuckoo 
fluted  in  an  elm  close  by,  and  at  the  sound  there 


The  Heavenly  Wisdom       361 

darted  into  my  mind  the  memory,  seen  in  an 
airy  perspective,  of  innumerable  happy  and  care- 
less days,  spent  in  years  long  past,  with  eager 
and  light-hearted  companions,  in  whose  smiling 
eyes  and  caressing  motions  was  reflected  one's 
own  secret  happiness.  How  full  the  world  seemed 
of  sweet  surprises  then  !  To  sit  in  an  evening 
hour  in  some  quiet,  scented  garden  in  the  gather- 
ing dusk,  and  with  the  sense  of  a  delicious 
mystery  flashing  from  the  light  movements,  the 
pensive  eyes,  the  curve  of  arm  or  cheek  of  one's 
companion,  how  beautiful  that  was !  And  yet 
how  simple  and  natural  it  seemed.  That  was  all 
over  and  gone,  and  a  gulf  seemed  fixed  between 
those  days  and  these.  And  then  there  came  first 
that  sad  and  sweet  regret,  "the  passion  of  the 
past,"  as  Tennyson  called  it,  that  suddenly 
brimmed  the  eyes  at  the  thought  of  the  vanished 
days  ;  and  there  followed  an  intense  desire  to  live 
in  it  once  again,  to  have  made  more  of  it,  a  re- 
bellious longing  to  abandon  oneself  with  a  care- 
less disregard  to  the  old  rapture. 

Then  on  that  mood,  rising  like  a  star  into  the 
blue  spaces  of  the  evening,  came  the  thought  that 
the  old  days  were  not  dead  after  all.  That  they 
were  assuredly  there,  just  as  the  future  was  there, 


362  The  Altar  Fire 

a  true  part  of  oneself,  ineffaceable,  eternal.  And 
hard  on  the  heels  of  that  came  another  and  a 
deeper  intuition  still,  that  not  in  such  delights  did 
the  secret  really  rest ;  what  then  was  the  secret  ? 
It  was  surely  this :  that  one  must  advance,  led 
onward  like  a  tottering  child  by  the  strong  arm  of 
God.  That  the  new  knowledge  of  suffering  and 
sorrow  was  as  beautiful  as  the  old,  and  more  so, 
and  that  instead  of  repining  over  the  vanished 
joys,  one  might  continue  to  rejoice  in  them  and 
even  rejoice  in  having  lost  them,  for  I  seemed  to 
perceive  that  one's  aim  was  not,  after  all,  to  be 
lively,  and  joyful,  and  strong,  but  to  be  wiser,  and 
larger-minded,  and  more  hopeful,  even  at  the  ex- 
pense of  delight.  And  then  I  saw  that  I  would 
not  really  for  any  price  part  with  the  sad  wisdom 
that  I  had  reluctantly  learnt,  but  that  though  the 
burden  galled  my  shoulder,  it  held  within  it 
precious  things  which  I  could  not  throw  away . 
And  I  had,  too,  the  glad  sense  that  even  if  in  a 
childish  petulance  I  would  have  laid  my  burden 
down  and  run  off  among  the  flowers,  God  was 
stronger  than  I,  and  would  not  suffer  me  to  lose 
what  I  had  gained.  I  might,  I  assuredly  should, 
wish  to  be  more  free,  more  light  of  heart.  But  I 
seemed  to  myself  like  a  woman  that  had  borne  a 


Winged  Flowers  363 

child  in  suffering,  and  that  no  matter  how  restless 
and  vexatious  a  care  that  child  might  prove  to  be, 
under  no  conceivable  circumstances  could  she 
wish  that  she  were  barren  and  without  the  ex- 
perience of  love.  I  felt  indeed  that  I  had  ful- 
filled a  part  of  my  destiny,  and  that  I  might  be 
glad  that  the  suffering  was  behind  me,  even 
though  it  separated  me  from  the  careless  days. 

I  hope  that  in  after  days  I  may  sometimes  make 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  place  where  that  wonderful 
truth  thus  dawned  upon  me.  I  have  made  a  tab- 
ernacle there  in  my  spirit,  like  the  saints  who  saw 
the  lyord  transfigured  before  their  eyes ;  and  to 
me  it  had  been  indeed  a  transfiguration,  in  which 
Love  and  sorrow  and  hope  had  been  touched  with 
an  unearthly  light  of  God. 

June  24,  1 891. 

Yesterday  I  was  walking  in  a  field-path  through 
the  meadows  ;  it  was  just  that  time  in  early  sum- 
mer when  the  grass  is  rising,  when  flowers  appear 
in  little  groups  and  bevies.  There  was  a  patch  of 
speedwell,  like  a  handful  of  sapphires  cast  down. 
Why  does  one's  heart  go  out  to  certain  flowers, 
flowers  which  seem  to  have  some  message  for  us 
if  we  could  but  read  it  ?  A  little  way  from  the 
path  I  saw  a  group  of  absolutely  unknown  flower- 


3^4  The  Altar  Fire 

buds ;  they  were  big,  pale  things,  looking  more 
like  pods  than  flowers,  growing  on  tall  stems.  I 
hate  crushing  down  meadow-grass,  but  I  could 
not  resist  my  impulse  of  curiosity.  I  walked  up  to 
them,  and  just  as  I  was  going  to  bend  down  and 
look  at  them,  lo  and  behold,  all  my  flowers  opened 
before  my  eyes  as  by  a  concerted  signal,  spread 
wings  of  the  richest  blue,  and  fluttered  away  before 
my  eyes.  They  were  nothing  more  than  a  com- 
pany of  butterflies  who,  tired  of  play,  had  fallen 
asleep  together  with  closed  wings  on  the  high 
grass-stems. 

There  they  had  sate,  like  folded  promises,  hid- 
ing their  azure  sheen.  Perhaps  even  now  my 
hopes  sit  motionless  and  lifeless,  in  russet  robes. 
Perhaps  as  I  draw  dully  near,  they  may  spring 
suddenly  to  life,  and  dance  away  in  the  sunshine, 
like  fragments  of  the  crystalline  sky. 

July  8,  1891. 

I  was  in  town  last  week  for  a  few  days  on  some 
necessary  business,  staying  with  old  friends.  Two 
or  three  people  came  in  to  dine  one  night,  and 
afterwards,  I  hardly  know  how,  I  found  myself 
talking  with  a  curious  openness  to  one  of  the 
guests,   a   woman  whom  I  only  slightly  knew. 


Christian  Science  3^5 

She  is  a  very  able  and  cultivated  woman  indeed, 
and  it  was  a  surprise  to  her  friends  when  she 
lately  became  a  Christian  Scientist.  When  I  have 
met  her  before,  I  have  thought  her  a  curiously 
guarded  personality,  appearing  to  live  a  secret  and 
absorbing  life  of  her  own,  impenetrable,  and  hold- 
ing up  a  shield  of  conventionality  against  the 
world.  To-night  she  laid  down  her  shield,  and  I 
saw  the  beating  of  a  very  pure  and  loving  heart. 
The  text  of  her  talk  was  that  we  should  never 
allow  ourselves  to  believe  in  our  limitations,  be- 
cause they  did  not  really  exist.  I  found  her,  to 
my  surprise,  intensely  emotional,  with  a  passion- 
ate disbelief  in  and  yet  pity  for  all  sorrow  and 
suffering.  She  appealed  to  me  to  take  up  Chris- 
tian Science — "  not  to  read  or  talk  about  it,"  she 
said  ;  "  that  is  no  use ;  it  is  a  life,  not  a  theory; 
just  accept  it,  and  live  by  it,  and  you  will  find  it 
true." 

But  there  is  one  part  of  me  that  rebels  against 
the  whole  idea  of  Christian  Science — my  reason. 
I  found,  or  thought  I  found,  this  woman  to  be 
wise  both  in  head  and  heart,  but  not  wise  in  mind. 
It  seems  to  me  that  pain  and  sorrow  and  suffering 
are  phenomena,  just  as  real  as  other  phenomena  ; 
and  that  one  does  no  good  by  denying  them,  but 


3^6  The  Altar  Fire 

only  by  accepting  them,  and  living  in  them  and 
through  them.  One  might  as  truly,  it  seems,  take 
upon  oneself  to  deny  that  there  was  any  such 
colour  as  red  in  the  world,  and  tell  people  that 
whenever  they  saw  or  discerned  any  tinge  of  red, 
it  was  a  delusion  ;  one  can  only  use  one's  faculty 
of  perception  ;  and  if  sorrow  and  suffering  are  a 
delusion,  how  do  I  know  that  love  and  joy  are 
not  delusions  too  ?  They  must  stand  and  fall 
together.  The  reason  why  I  believe  that  joy  and 
love  will  in  the  end  triumph,  is  because  I  have, 
because  we  all  have,  an  instinctive  desire  for  them, 
and  a  no  less  instinctive  fear  and  dread  of  pain 
and  sorrow.  We  may,  indeed  I  believe  with  all 
my  heart  that  we  shall,  emerge  from  them,  but 
they  are  no  less  assuredly  there.  We  triumph 
over  them,  when  we  learn  to  live  bravely  and 
courageously  in  them,  when  we  do  not  seek  to 
evade  them  or  to  hasten  incredulously  away  from 
them.  We  fail,  if  we  spend  our  time  in  repining, 
in  regretting,  in  wishing  the  sweet  and  tranquil 
hours  of  untroubled  joy  back.  We  are  not  strong 
enough  to  desire  the  cup  of  suffering,  even  though 
we  may  know  that  we  must  drink  it  before  we  can 
discern  the  truth.  But  we  may  rejoice  with  a 
deep-seated  joy,  in  the  dark  hours,  that  the  Hand 


The  Sorrow  of  Reuben       367 

of  God  is  heavy  upon  us.  When  our  vital  ener- 
gies flag,  when  what  we  thought  were  our  effec- 
tive powers  languish  and  grow  faint,  then  we 
may  be  glad  because  the  Father  is  showing  us 
His  Will ;  and  then  our  sorrow  is  a  fruitful  sor- 
row, and  labours,  as  the  swelling  seed  labours  in 
the  sombre  earth  to  thrust  her  slender  hands  up 
to  the  sun  and  air.     .     .     . 

We  two  sate  long  in  a  corner  of  the  quiet  lamp- 
lit  room,  talking  like  old  friends — once  or  twice 
our  conversation  was  suspended  by  music,  which 
fell  like  dew  upon  my  parched  heart ;  and  though 
I  could  not  accept  my  fellow-pilgrim's  thought,  I 
could  see  in  the  glance  of  her  eyes,  full  of  pity 
and  wonder,  that  we  were  indeed  faring  along  the 
same  strange  road  to  the  paradise  of  God.  It  did 
me  good,  that  talk  ;  it  helped  me  with  a  sense  of 
sweet  and  tender  fellowship  ;  and  I  had  no  doubt 
that  God  was  teaching  my  friend  in  His  own 
fatherly  way,  even  as  He  was  teaching  me,  and 
all  of  us. 

July  19,  1891. 

In  one  of  the  great  windows  of  King's  College 
Chapel,  Cambridge,  there  is  a  panel  the  beauty  of 
which  used  to  strike  me  even  as  a  boy.  I  used  to 
wonder  what  further  thing  it  meant. 


368  The  Altar  Fire 

It  was,  I  believe — I  may  be  wholly  wrong — a 
picture  of  Reuben,  looking  in  an  agony  of  unavail- 
ing sorrow  into  the  pit  from  which  his  brothers  had 
drawn  the  boy  they  hated  to  sell  him  to  the  Mid- 
ianites.  I  cannot  recollect  the  details  plainly,  and 
little  remains  but  a  memory  of  dim-lit  azure  and 
glowing  scarlet.  Kven  though  the  pit  was 
quaintly  depicted  as  a  draw-well,  with  a  solid 
stone  coping,  the  pretty  absurdity  of  the  thought 
only  made  one  love  the  fancy  better.  But  the 
figure  of  Reuben  ! — even  through  an  obscuring 
mist  of  crossing  leads  and  window-bars  and 
weather  stains,  there  was  a  poignant  agony 
wrought  into  the  pose  of  the  figure,  with  its 
clasped  hands  and  strained  gaze. 

I  used  to  wonder,  I  say,  what  further  thing  it 
meant.  For  the  deep  spell  of  art  is  that  it  holds  an 
intenser,  a  wider  significance  beneath  its  symbols 
than  the  mere  figure,  the  mere  action  displays. 

What  was  the  remorse  of  Reuben?  It  was  that 
through  his  weakness,  his  complaisance,  he  had 
missed  his  chance  of  protecting  what  was  secretly 
dear  to  him.  He  loved  the  boy,  I  think,  or  at  all 
events  he  loved  his  father,  and  would  not  wil- 
lingly have  hurt  the  old  man.  And  now,  even  in 
his  moment  of  yielding,  of  temporising,  the  worst 


The  Sorrow  of  Reuben       369 

had  happened,  the  child  was  gone,  delivered  over 
to  what  baseness  of  usage  he  could  not  bear  to 
think.  He  himself  had  been  a  traitor  to  love  and 
justice  and  light ;  and  yet,  in  the  fruitful  designs 
of  God,  that  very  traitorous  deed  was  to  blossom 
into  the  hope  and  glory  of  the  race ;  the  deed 
itself  was  to  be  tenderly  forgiven,  and  it  was  to 
open  up,  in  the  fulness  of  days,  a  prospect  of 
greatness  and  prosperity  to  the  tribe,  to  fling  the 
seed  of  that  mighty  family  in  soil  where  it  was  to 
be  infinitely  enriched ;  it  was  to  open  the  door  at 
last  to  a  whole  troop  of  great  influences,  marvel- 
lous events,  large  manifestations  of  God. 

Even  so,  in  a  parable,  the  figure  came  insist- 
ently before  me  all  day,  shining  and  fading  upon 
the  dark  background  of  the  mind. 

It  was  at  the  loss  of  my  own  soul  that  I  had  con- 
nived ;  not  at  its  death  indeed — I  had  not  plotted 
for  that — but  I  had  betrayed  myself,  I  saw,  year 
by  year.  I  had  despised  the  dreams  and  visions 
of  the  frail  and  ingenuous  spirit ;  and  when  it  had 
come  out  trustfully  to  me  in  the  wilderness,  I  had 
let  it  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Midianites,  the 
purloining  band  that  trafiicked  in  all  things, 
great  and  small,  from  the  beast  of  the  desert  to 
the  bodies  and  souls  of  men 


Z70  The  Altar  Fire 

My  soul  had  thus  lain  expiring  before  my  eyes, 
and  now  God  had  taken  it  away  from  my  faithless 
hands  ;  I  saw  at  last  that  to  save  the  soul  one 
must  assuredly  lose  it ;  that  if  it  was  to  grow 
strong  and  joyful  and  wise,  it  must  be  sold  into 
servitude  and  dark  afflictions.  I  saw  that  when  I 
was  too  weak  to  save  it,  God  had  rent  it  from  me, 
but  that  from  the  darkness  of  the  pit  it  should 
fare  forth  upon  a  mighty  voyage,  and  be  made 
pure  and  faithful  in  a  region  undreamed  of. 

To  Reuben  was  left  nothing  but  shame  and  sor- 
row of  heart  and  deceit  to  hide  his  sin  ;  unlike  him, 
to  me  was  given  to  see,  beyond  the  desert  and  the 
dwindling  line  of  camels,  the  groves  and  palaces 
of  the  land  of  wisdom,  whither  my  sad  soul  was 
bound,  lonely  and  dismayed.  My  heart  went  out  to 
the  day  of  reconciliation,  when  I  should  be  forgiven 
with  tears  of  joy  for  my  own  faltering  treachery, 
when  my  soul  should  be  even  grateful  for  my 
weakness,  because  from  that  very  faithlessness, 
and  from  no  other,  should  the  new  life  be  born. 

And  thus  with  a  peaceful  hope  that  lay  beyond 
shame  and  sorrow  alike,  as  the  shining  plain  lies 
out  beyond  the  broken  crags  of  the  weary  moun- 
tain, I  gave  myself  utterly  into  the  Hands  of  the 
Father  of  All.     He  was  close  beside  me  that  day, 


A  Death-Bed  371 

upholding,  comforting,  enriching  me.  Not  hid- 
den in  clouds  from  which  the  wrathful  trumpet 
pealed,  but  walking  with  a  tender  joy,  in  a  fra- 
grance of  love,  in  the  garden,  at  the  cool  of  the  day. 

August  18,  1891. 

Mr. is  dead.     He  died  yesterday,  holding 

my  hand.  The  end  was  quite  sudden,  though 
not  unexpected.  He  had  been  much  weaker  of 
late,  and  he  knew  he  could  only  live  a  short 
time.  I  have  been  much  with  him  these  last  few 
days.  He  could  not  talk  much,  but  there  was  a 
peaceful  glory  on  his  face  which  made  me  think 
of  the  Pilgrims  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  whose 
call  was  so  joyful.  I  never  suspected  how  little 
desire  he  had  to  live  ;  but  when  he  knew  that  his 
days  were  numbered,  he  allowed  something  of 
his  delight  to  escape  him,  as  a  prisoner  might 
who  has  borne  his  imprisonment  bravely  and  sees 
his  release  draw  nigh.  He  suffered  a  good  deal, 
but  each  pang  was  to  him  only  like  the  smiting 
off  of  chains.  **I  have  had  a  very  happy  life,'* 
he  said  to  me  once  with  a  smile.  * '  I/)oking 
back,  it  seems  as  though  my  later  happiness  had 
soaked  backwards  through  the  whole  fabric,  so 
that  my  joy  in   age  has  linked  itself  as  by  a 


37^  The  Altar  Fire 

golden  bridge  to  the  old  childish  raptures. ' '  Then 
he  looked  curiously  at  me,  with  a  half- smile,  and 
added,  ''  But  happy  as  I  have  been,  I  find  it  in 
my  heart  to  envy  you.  You  hardly  know  how 
much  you  are  to  be  envied.  You  have  no  more 
partings  to  fear  ;  your  beautiful  past  is  all  folded 
up,  to  be  creased  and  tarnished  no  more.  You 
have  had  the  love  of  wife  and  child — the  one 
thing  that  I  have  missed.  You  have  had  fame 
too  ;  and  you  have  drunk  far  deeper  of  the  cup  of 
suffering  than  I.  I  look  upon  you,"  he  said 
laughingly,  "as  an  old  home-keeping  captain, 
who  has  never  done  anything  but  garrison  duty, 
might  look  upon  a  young  general  who  has  carried 
through  a  great  campaign  and  is  covered  with 
signs  of  honour. ' ' 

A  little  while  after  he  aroused  himself  from  a 
slumber  to  say,  "  You  will  be  surprised  to  find 
yourself  named  in  my  will ;  please  don't  have 
any  scruples  about  accepting  the  inheritance.  I 
want  my  niece,  of  course,  to  reign  in  my  stead  ; 
but  if  you  outlive  her,  all  is  to  go  to  you.  I  want 
you  to  live  on  in  this  place,  to  stand  by  her  in 
her  loneliness,  as  a  brother  by  a  sister.  I  want 
you  to  help  and  work  for  my  dear  people  here,  to 
be  tender  and  careful  for  them.     There  are  many 


A  Death-Bed  373 

things  that  a  man  can  do  which  a  woman  cannot ; 
and  your  difficulty  will  be  to  find  a  hem  for  your 
life.  Remember  that  there  is  no  one  who  is  in- 
jured by  this — my  niece  is  my  only  living  rela- 
tion ;  so  accept  this  as  your  post  in  life ;  it  will 
not  be  a  hard  one.  It  is  strange,"  he  added, 
' '  that  one  should  cling  to  such  trifles ;  but  I 
should  like  you  to  take  my  name,  if  you  will ; 
and  you  must  find  some  one  to  succeed  you ;  I 
wish  it  could  have  been  your  own  boy,  whom  I 
have  learnt  to  love." 

Miss came  in  shortly  after,  and  Mr. 

said  to  her,  ''Yes,  I  have  told  him,  and  he  con- 
sents. You  do  consent,  do  you  not?"  I  said, 
"Yes,  dear  friend,  of  course  I  consent;  and  con- 
sent gratefully,  for  you  have  given  me  a  work  in 

the  world."     And  then  I  took  Miss 's  hand 

across  the  bed  and  kissed  it ;  the  old  man  laid  his 
hands  upon  our  heads  very  tenderly  and  said, 
"  Brother  and  sister  to  the  end." 

I  thought  he  was  tired  then,  and  made  as  if  to 
leave  him,  but  he  said,  '*  Do  not  go,  my  son." 
He  lay  smiling  to  himself,  as  if  well  pleased. 
Then  a  sudden  change  came  over  his  face,  and  I 
saw  that  he  was  going  ;  we  knelt  beside  him,  and 
his  last  words  were  words  of  blessing. 


374  The  Altar  Fire 

October  12,  1891. 
This  book  has  been  my  companion  through 
some  very  strange,  sad,  terrible,  and  joyful  hours  ; 
my  faithful  companion,  my  silent  friend,  my  true 
confessor.  I  have  felt  the  need  of  utterance,  the 
imperative  instinct — the  most  primitive,  the  most 
childish  of  instincts — to  tell  my  pains  and  hopes 
and  dreams.  I  could  not  utter  them,  at  the  time, 
to  another.  I  could  not  let  the  voice  of  my 
groaning  reach  the  ears  of  any  human  being. 
Perhaps  it  would  have  been  better  for  us  both,  if 
I  could  have  said  it  all  to  my  dearest  Maud.  But 
a  sort  of  courtesy  forbade  my  redoubling  my  mo- 
notonous lamentations;  her  burden  was  heavy 
enough  without  that.  I  can  hardly  dignify  it 
with  the  name  of  manliness  or  chivalry,  because 
my  frame  of  mind  during  those  first  months, 
when  I  lost  the  power  of  writing,  was  purely 
despicable ;  and  then,  too,  I  did  not  want  sym- 
pathy ;  I  wanted  help  ;  and  help  no  one  but  God 
could  give  me  ;  half  my  time  was  spent  in  a  kind 
of  dumb  prayer  to  Him,  that  He  would  give  me 
some  sort  of  strength,  some  touch  of  courage  ;  for 
a  helpless  cowardice  was  the  note  of  my  frame  of 
mind.  Well,  He  has  sent  me  strength —  I  recog- 
nise that  now — not  by  lightening  the  load,  but 


The  Record  375 

by  making  it  insupportably  heavy  and  yet  show- 
ing me  that  I  had  the  strength  to  carry  it ;  I  am 
still  in  the  dark  as  to  why  I  deserved  so  sore  a 
punishment,  and  I  cannot  yet  see  that  the  lone- 
liness to  which  He  has  condemned  me  is  the  help 
that  is  proportioned  to  my  need.  But  I  walk  no 
longer  in  a  vain  shadow.  I  have  known  affliction 
by  the  rod  of  His  wrath.  But  the  darkness  in 
which  I  walk  is  not  the  darkness  of  thickening 
gloom,  but  the  darkness  of  the  breaking  day. 

And  then,  too,  I  suppose  that  writing  down 
my  thoughts  from  day  to  day  just  eased  the 
dumb  pain  of  inaction,  as  the  sick  man  shifts 
himself  in  his  bed.  Anyhow  it  is  w^ritten,  and 
it  shall  stand  as  a  record. 

But  now  I  shall  write  no  more.  I  shall  slip 
gratefully  and  securely  into  the  crowd  of  in- 
articulate and  silent  men  and  women,  the  vast 
majority,  after  all,  of  humanity.  One,  who  like 
myself  has  the  consciousness  of  receiving  from 
moment  to  moment  sharp  and  clear  impressions 
from  everything  on  earth,  people,  houses,  fields, 
trees,  clouds,  is  beset  by  a  kind  of  torturing 
desire  to  shape  it  all  in  words  and  phrases. 
Why,  I  know  not !  It  is  the  desire,  I  suppose, 
to  make  some  record  of  what  seems  so  clear, 


376  The  Altar  Fire 

so  distinct,  so  beautiful,  so  interesting.  One 
cannot  bear  that  one  impression  that  seems  so 
vivid  and  strange  should  be  lost  and  perish. 
It  is  the  artistic  instinct,  no  doubt.  And  then 
one  passes  through  the  streets  of  a  great  city, 
and  one  becomes  aware  that  of  the  thousands 
that  pass  one  by,  perhaps  only  one  or  two  have 
the  same  instinct,  and  even  they  are  bound  to 
silence  by  circumstance,  by  lack  of  opportunity. 
The  rest — life  is  enough  for  them ;  hunger  and 
thirst,  love  and  strife,  hope  and  fear,  that  is  their 
daily  meat.  And  life,  I  doubt  not,  is  what  we 
are  set  to  taste.  Of  all  those  thousands,  some 
few  have  the  desire,  and  fewer  still  the  power,  to 
stand  apart  from  the  throng.  These  are  not 
content  with  the  humdrum  life  of  earning  a  live- 
lihood, of  forming  ties,  of  passing  the  time  as 
pleasantly  as  they  can.  They  desire  rather  to  be 
felt,  to  exercise  influence,  to  mould  others  to 
their  will,  to  use  them  for  their  convenience.  I 
have  had  little  temptation  to  do  that,  but  my  life 
has  been  poisoned  at  its  source,  I  now  discern, 
by  the  desire  to  differentiate  myself  from  others. 
I  could  not  walk  faithfully  in  the  procession  ;  I 
was  as  one  who  likes  to  sit  securely  in  his  win- 
dow  above  the  street,  noting  all  that  he  sees, 


The  Way  of  Peace  377 

sketching  all  that  strikes  his  fancy,  hugging  his 
pleasure  at  being  apart  from  and  superior  to  the 
ordinary  run  of  mortals.  Here  lay  my  chiefest 
fault,  that  I  could  not  bear  a  humble  hand,  but 
looked  upon  my  wealth,  my  loving  circle,  as 
things  that  should  fence  me  from  the  throng.  I 
lived  in  a  paradise  of  my  own  devising. 

But  now  I  have  put  that  all  aside  for  ever.  I  will 
live  the  life  of  a  learner  ;  I  will  be  docile  if  I  can. 
I  might  indeed  have  been  stripped  of  everything, 
bidden  to  join  the  humblest  tribe  of  workers  for 
daily  bread.  But  God  has  spared  my  weakness, 
and  I  should  be  faithless  indeed,  if,  seeing  how 
intently  His  will  has  dealt  with  me,  I  did  not 
recognise  the  clear  guiding  of  His  hand.  He  has 
given  me  a  place  and  a  quiet  work  to  do  ;  these 
strange  bereavements,  one  after  another,  have  not 
hardened  me.  I  feel  the  bonds  of  love  for  those 
whom  I  have  lost  drawn  closer  every  hour.  They 
are  waiting  for  me,  I  am  sure  of  that.  It  is  not 
reason,  it  is  not  faith  that  prompts  me  ;  it  is  a  far 
deeper  and  stronger  instinct,  which  I  could  not 
doubt  if  I  would.  What  wonder  if  I  look  for- 
ward with  an  eager  and  ardent  hope  to  death.  I 
can  conceive  no  more  welcome  tidings  than  the 
tidings  that  death  was  at  hand.     But  I  do  not 


378  The  Altar  Fire 

expect  to  die.  My  health  of  body  is  almost 
miraculously  preserved.  What  I  dare  to  hope  is 
that  I  may  learn  by  slow  degrees  to  set  the  hap- 
piness of  others  above  my  own.  I  will  listen  for 
any  sound  of  grief  or  discontent,  and  I  will  try  to 
quiet  it.  I  will  spend  my  time  and  strength  as 
freely  as  I  can.  That  is  a  far-off  hope.  One 
cannot  in  a  moment  break  through  the  self-con- 
sideration of  a  lifetime.  But  whereas,  before, 
my  dim  sense  that  happiness  could  not  be  found 
by  deliberately  searching  for  ease  made  me  half 
rebellious,  half  uncomfortable,  I  know  now  that  it 
is  true,  and  I  will  turn  my  back  if  I  can  upon  that 
lonely  and  unsatisfied  quest.  I  did  indeed — I  can 
honestly  say  that — desire  with  a  passionate  intent- 
ness  the  happiness  of  Maud  and  the  children  ; 
but  I  think  I  desired  it  most  in  order  that  the 
sunshine  of  their  happiness  should  break  in 
warmth  and  light  upon  myself.  It  will  be  hard 
enough — I  can  see  that — not  to  labour  still  for  the 
sake  of  the  ultimate  results  upon  my  own  peace 
of  mind.  But  in  my  deepest  heart  I  do  not  de- 
sire to  do  that,  and  I  will  not,  God  helping  me. 

And  so  to-day,  having  read  the  whole  record 
once  again,  with  blinding  tears,  tears  of  love,  I 
think,  not  tears  of  self-pity,  I  will  close  the  book 


The  Nearest  Way  379 

and  write  no  more.  But  I  will  not  destroy  it,  be- 
cause it  may  help  some  soul  that  may  come  after 
me,  into  whose  hands  it  may  fall,  to  struggle  on 
in  the  middle  of  sorrow  and  darkness.  To  him 
will  I  gladly  reveal  all  that  God  has  done 
for  my  soul.  That  poor,  pitiful,  shrinking  soul, 
with  all  its  faint  desires  after  purity  and 
nobleness  and  peace,  all  its  self- wrought  misery, 
all  its  unhappy  failures,  all  its  secret  faults,  its 
undiscerned  weaknesses,  I  put  humbly  and  con- 
fidently in  the  hands  of  the  God  who  made  me.  I 
cannot  amend  myself,  but  I  can  at  least  co- 
operate with  His  loving  Will.  I  can  stumble 
onwards  with  my  hand  in  His,  like  a  timid  child 
with  a  strong  and  loving  father.  I  may  wish  to 
be  lifted  in  His  arms,  I  may  wonder  why  He 
does  not  have  more  pity  on  my  frailty.  But  I 
can  believe  that  He  is  leading  me  home,  and  that 
His  way  is  the  best  and  nearest. 

TH^  END. 


.t  LI, 
OF  TH 

UNIVERSITY 
^/F0Rt4: 


ARTHUR  CHRISTOPHER  BENSON 

jt/  Impression, 

BESIDE  Still  Waters 

Uniform  with  the  *♦  Upton  Letters'* 

A  record  of  the  sentiments,  the  changing  opinions,  and  the 
quiet  course  of  life  of  a  young  man  whom  an  unexpected  legacy 
has  freed  from  the  necessity  of  leading  an  active  life  in  the  world 
of  affairs.  The  book  aims  to  win  men  back  to  the  joys  of  peace- 
ful work,  and  simplicity,  and  friendship,  and  quiet  helpfulness. 
It  is,  too,  a  protest  against  the  rule  or  tyranny  of  convention,  the 
appetite  for  luxury,  power,  excitement  and  strong  sensation. 

gth  Impression. 

Earlier  Books  by  Mr.  Benson 

From  a  College  window 

"  Mr.  Benson  has  written  nothing  equal  to  this  mellow  and 
full-flavored  book.  From  cover  to  cover  it  is  packed  with  per- 
sonality ;  from  phrase  to  phrase  it  reveals  a  thoroughly  sincere 
and  unaffected  effort  of  self-expression  ;  full-orbed  and  four- 
square, it  is  a  piece  of  true  and  simple  literature." 

London  Chronicle, 
loth  Impression. 

The  Upton  letters 

"A  piece  of  real  literature  of  the  highest  order,  beautiful 
and  fragrant.  To  review  the  book  adequately  is  impossible.  .  .  . 
It  is  in  truth  a  precious  thing." —  Week's   Survey. 

"  A  book  that  we  have  read  and  reread  if  only  for  the  sake 
of  its  delicious  flavor.  There  has  been  nothing  so  good  of  its 
kind  since  the  Etchingham  Letters.  The  letters  are  beautiful, 
quiet,  and  wise,  dealing  with  deep  things  in  a  dignified  way." 

Christian  Register, 

Crown  8vo,  Each,  $1.25  Net. 


Q.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

New  Yoric  London 


Shelburne  Essays 

By  Paul  Elmer  More 

4  vols.     Crown  octavo. 
Sold  separately.     Net,  $1.25.     (By  mail  $1.35) 

Contents 

First  Series:  A  Hermit's  Notes  on  Thoreau — The  Soli- 
tude of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne — The  Origins  of  Haw- 
thorne and  Poe — The  Influence  of  Emerson — The  Spirit 
of  Carlyle — The  Science  of  English  Verse — Arthur 
Symonds  :  The  Two  Illusions — The  Epic  of  Ireland  — 
Two  Poets  of  the  Irish  Movement — Tolstoy  ;  or,  The 
Ancient  Feud  between  Philosophy  and  Art — The  Re- 
ligious Ground  of  Humanitarianism. 

Second  Series  :  Elizabethan  Sonnets — Shakespeare's  Son- 
nets— Lafcadio  Hearn — The  First  Complete  Edition  of 
Hazlitt  —  Charles  Lamb  —  Kipling  and  FitzGerald  — 
George  Crabbe — The  Novels  of  George  Meredith  — 
Hawthorne:  Looking  before  and  after — Delphi  and 
Greek  Literature — Nemesis  ;  or,  The  Divine  Envy. 

Third  Series  :  The  Correspondence  of  William  Covvper — 
Whittier  the  Poet — The  Centenary  of  Sainte-Beuve — 
The  Scotch  Novels  and  Scotch  History — Swinburne — 
Christina  Rossetti — Why  is  Browning  Popular?— A  note 
on  Byron's  "Don  Juan" — Laurence  Sterne — J.  Henry 
Shorthouse — The  Quest. 

Fourth  Series  :  The  Vicar  of  Morwenstow — Fanny  Bur- 
ney — A  note  on  '*  Daddy"  Crisp — George  Herbert — John 
Keats — Benjamin  Franklin — Charles  Lamb  Again — Walt 
Whitman — William  Blake — The  Letters  of  Horace  Wal- 
pole — The  Theme  of  Paradise  Lost. 


A  Few  Press  Criticisms  on 
Shelburne  Essays 

**  It  is  a  pleasure  to  hail  in  Mr.  More  a  genuine  critic,  for 
genuine  critics  in  America  in  these  days  are  uncommonly 
scarce.  ,  .  .  We  recommend,  as  a  sample  of  his  breadth, 
style,  acumen,  and  power  the  essay  on  Tolstoy  in  the  present 
volume.  That  represents  criticism  that  has  not  merely 
a  metropolitan  but  a  world  note.  .  .  .  One  is  thoroughly 
grateful  to  Mr.  More  for  the  high  quality  of  his  thought,  his 
serious  purpose,  and  his  excellent  style." — Harvard  Gradu- 
ates* Magazine. 

•*We  do  not  know  of  any  one  now  writing  who  gives 
evidence  of  a  better  critical  equipment  than  Mr.  More.  It 
is  rare  nowadays  to  find  a  writer  so  thoroughly  familiar  with 
both  ancient  and  modern  thought.  It  is  this  width  of  view, 
this  intimate  acquaintance  with  so  much  of  the  best  that  has 
been  thought  and  said  in  the  world,  irrespective  of  local 
prejudice,  that  constitute  Mr.  More*s  strength  as  a  critic. 
He  has  been  able  to  form  for  himself  a  sound  literary  canon 
and  a  sane  philosophy  of  life  which  constitute  to  our  mind 
his  peculiar  merit  as  a  critic." — Independent. 

'*  He  is  familiar  with  classical.  Oriental,  and  English 
literature;  he  uses  a  temperate,  lucid,  weighty^  and  not 
ungraceful  style ;  he  is  aware  of  his  best  predecessors,  and  is 
apparently  on  the  way  to  a  set  of  philosophic  principles 
which  should  lead  him  to  a  high  and  perhaps  influential 
place  in  criticism.  .  .  .  We  believe  that  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  a  critic  who  must  be  counted  among  the  first  who 
take  literature  and  life  for  their  theme." — London  Speaker^ 


G.   P.   Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  London 


A  Sterling  Piece  of  Literary  Work 

THE   NOVELS  OF  HENRY  JAMES 

BY 

•  ELISABETH    LUTHER    GARY 

Author  of  "  The  Rossettis,"  *'  William  Morris,"  etc 

With  a  Bibliography  by  Frederick  A.  King 

Crown  octavo.      With  Portrait  in  Photogravure. 
Net,  $1.25    (By  mail,  S1.35) 

All  of  Miss  Gary's  work  in  biography  and  criti- 
cism is  marked  by  the  distinct  note  of  appre- 
ciation. In  such  a  spirit  she  brings  her  reader 
into  close  touch  with  the  mental  and  spiritual  traits 
of  each  author,  and  leaves  him  with  a  deeper  im- 
pression of  the  general  influences  of  the  subject 
chosen  for  study.  In  her  latest  volume,  a  critical 
interpretation  of  the  novels  of  Mr.  Henry  James, 
she  has  a  theme  well  suited  to  her  powers  of  in- 
sight and  illumination,  and  as  a  trained  writer,  a 
student  of  character  and  literature,  Miss  Gary  is 
well  equipped  for  her  congenial  task. 

The  intention  of  the  book  is  sufficiently  indi- 
cated by  its  title.  It  is  an  attempt  to  fix  more  or 
less  definitely  the  impression  given  by  the  work  of 
Mr.  James  taken  as  a  whole  accomplishment  and 
reviewed  with  reference  to  its  complete  effect.  It 
is  not  so  much  a  criticism  as  a  comment  upon 
the  author's  point  of  view  and  the  inferences  he 
draws  from  life.  An  exhaustive  bibliography  com- 
piled by  Frederick  A.  King,  arranged  logically  as 
well  as  chronologically,  completes  a  remarkably  in- 
teresting and  well  rounded  piece  of  contemporary 
criticism 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  LONDON 


rx^TVF 


M 


■  J — .     ^ 

f^-^     TUX. 


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